NEXT AFGHAN OPIUM CROP COULD RIVAL RECORD

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan farmers now planting opium poppies will
probably reap a harvest comparable to this year's record crop, in part
because insurgents are preventing effective counternarcotics work,
officials said yesterday.

Planting is under way in southern regions responsible for the bulk of
the estimated 6,100 tons of Afghan opium produced in the 2005-6
growing season.

Drug production has skyrocketed since a U.S.-led offensive toppled the
Taliban regime five years ago for giving refuge to Osama bin Laden and
al-Qaeda camps. Last spring's poppy harvest accounted for 92 percent
of the global opium supply and was enough to make 610 tons of heroin -
more than the world's addicts consume in a year.

Police and government officials are deeply implicated in the trade,
which adds to the corruption and lawlessness threatening Afghanistan's
fledgling democracy. Taliban militiamen had all but eradicated opium
cultivation by 2000 but now profit from it, protecting poppy farmers.

Gen. Khodaidad, ad deputy minister in Afghanistan's Ministry of
Counter-Narcotics, said "especially in the south and southwest, we
haven't been doing as well."

"The reason is very clear - fighting," said Khodaidad, who like many
Afghans, uses one name. "Some of the districts are under the
influence of the Taliban or al-Qaeda."

Khodaidad said he couldn't promise a reduction in the harvest. "I
can tell you there will be no increase," he said.

However, the senior U.S. official said the new poppy crop probably
would be similar to the one planted a year ago, "maybe a little
under." He spoke on condition of anonymity.

The United Nations' anti-drug chief said recently that proceeds from
Afghan opium production are being used to finance terrorist groups.
The U.S. official said the country's drug trade was a $3.1 billion
business this year, and it doesn't "take much of that to fund
terrorism."