AUSTRALIAN WAR ON AFGHANISTAN OPIUM TRADE

The Rudd Government is preparing to send several teams of armed
Australian Federal Police to help co-ordinate opium crop destruction
in war-torn Afghanistan.

About 20 per cent of the heroin on Australian streets comes from Afghanistan.

The first batches appeared in Melbourne in 2004 as Taliban and
al-Qaida-controlled crops entered a post-invasion boom phase.

About 12 federal police agents and a team of Australian civilian
agricultural experts will be sent to Afghanistan, where they will
travel in armoured vehicles and be guarded by private security contractors.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is expected to announce details of their
deployment in the next few weeks.

Although the "Golden Triangle" of Burma, Laos and Thailand remains
the major source of heroin into Australia, the growth in smuggling
from Afghanistan to Australia has alarmed authorities.

Afghanistan produced a record $3.2 billion harvest last year --
making up about 93 per cent of the global heroin market.

Mr Rudd has argued the Afghan heroin trade has allowed al-Qaida and
the Taliban to rebuild.

The Federal Government says the agents will work with Afghan
counter-narcotics police and British officials to eliminate the opium trade.

There are four AFP agents -- two in Kabul and two in Jalalabad --
collecting intelligence on trafficking routes through the Khyber Pass
into northern Asia.

The Australian agricultural experts will advise local farmers on
alternative crops to replace opium harvests.

Efforts to crackdown on the illicit crops have been met with violence
from al-Qaida, with about 30 counter-narcotics police killed by
improvised explosives, snipers and in skirmishes.

A US program, overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency, is looking
at using helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft with chemical sprays to
wipe out opium crops in uncooperative Afghan provinces.

Western press reports have claimed the US considered using Agent
Orange as part of its anti-drugs offensive.

Critics warn that crop destruction drives farmers into the ranks of
terrorists and hinders intelligence-gathering efforts.

Australia hopes its agricultural experts, specialising in dry-climate
crops, will help replace the opium fields with crops that are as
profitable for Afghan farmers.

The farmers receive only a fraction of the value of their opium,
while a mix of Taliban, al-Qaida, tribal landowners, drug lab
operators and traffickers reap more than $680 million a year.

Britain, which has taken a lead in counter-narcotics in Afghanistan,
has spent more than $135 million a year on opium eradication and
planting alternative crops.

In the months after the coalition invasion of Afghanistan in 2001,
Australia contributed $500,000 to the United Nations International
Drug Control Program for "quick impact projects", specifically to
combat opium cultivation in Afghanistan.

Although Australian funds and not personnel were involved at that
stage, it is believed the money was used to destroy opium crops.

The Australian Defence Force has no directive to destroy opium crops,
even through troops regularly find crops in southern Afghanistan
where they are primarily grown.