INSPECTIONS SEEK EVIDENCE OF DRUG CROP

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Inspectors from skeptical foreign governments
began crisscrossing Afghanistan on Wednesday to check claims that the
world's main producer of opium, the sticky sap used to make heroin,
has wiped out the crop in less than a year.

Fields of green poppy pods, a major cash crop in the war- and
drought-stricken country, were banned in July by the ruling Taliban
militia's hardline leader, the reclusive Mullah Mohammed Omar.

The United Nations Drug Control Program sent inspectors and concluded
in March that the plants were gone. But countries battling heroin
addiction are doubtful, and on Wednesday they sent a team of 15
investigators, including two Americans.

Last year's opium harvest in Afghanistan was 4,000 tons - about 72
percent of production worldwide.