THOUSANDS TRAPPED BY POPPY PROTESTERS

KABUL, Afghanistan - Protests by poppy farmers furious over a new
government anti-drug campaign have stranded thousands of Afghan refugees
seeking to return home from Pakistan, a U.N. spokesman said Tuesday.

About 14,000 Afghan refugees are stranded between the Pakistani border town
of Torkham and Jalalabad because Shenwari tribesmen who grow poppies have
blocked the highway to protest the government campaign.

Afghanistan's interim administration is offering cash to growers of
heroin-producing poppy in exchange for destroying their crop.

Farmers say the compensation is inadequate, and the campaign has triggered
violent incidents in several major poppy-growing areas.

Government troops in the southern province of Helmand, the largest poppy
region, shot and killed eight farmers Sunday and wounded 16 others when a
protest by about 2,000 farmers got out of control, authorities said.

Interim Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim escaped assassination Monday during
a bomb blast as he arrived in Jalalabad to discuss the poppy eradication
campaign.

At least four people were killed and 16 injured.

The unrest has added to the problems facing the United Nations as it tries
to return refugees from Pakistan to Afghanistan, according to U.N.
spokesman Yusuf Hassan.

In addition to the 14,000 refugees stranded on the Torkham-Jalalabad road,
between 20,000 and 25,000 others are stuck on the Pakistan side of the
border because of a separate dispute between local tribal residents and the
government, which cut off electricity in the area for nonpayment of fees,
Hassan said.

Tribal members on the Pakistani side of the border have blocked roads to
Afghanistan to demand a restoration of electricity, according to U.N.
spokeswoman Melita Sunjic.

On the other side of the country, a U.N. program to return Afghan refugees
from Iran began Tuesday, despite factional fighting along the border, with
146 people crossing west of Herat, a spokesman said.