AFGHAN OPIUM CULTIVATION SOARS, U.N. SAYS

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Opium cultivation in Afghanistan rose a
"staggering" 59 percent this year, the U.N. anti-drug chief announced
Saturday in urging the government to crack down on big traffickers
and remove corrupt officials and police.

The record crop yielded 6,100 tons of opium, or enough to make 610
tons of heroin -- outstripping the demand of the world's heroin users
by a third, according to U.N. figures.

Officials warned that the illicit trade was undermining the Afghan
government, which is under attack by Islamic militants that a
U.S.-led offensive helped drive from power in late 2001.

"The news is very bad. On the opium front today in some of the
provinces of Afghanistan, we face a state of emergency," Antonio
Maria Costa, chief of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said at a
news conference. "In the southern provinces, the situation is out of control."

Costa talked with reporters after presenting results of the U.N.
survey to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who called efforts to fight
narcotics "inadequate."

With the economy struggling, there are not enough jobs and many
Afghans say they have to grow opium poppies to feed their families.
The trade already accounts for at least 35 percent of Afghanistan's
economy, financing warlords and insurgents.

The bulk of the opium increase was in Helmand province, where
cultivation rose 162 percent and accounted for 42 percent of the
Afghan crop. The southern province has been racked by a surge in
attacks by Taliban-led insurgents that has produced the worst
fighting in five years.

In an unrelated incident, a British patrol plane crashed Saturday in
southern Afghanistan, killing 14 servicemen in the worst loss of life
for the NATO-led security force since it took on the mission of
taming insurgents in the area a month ago.

A purported spokesman for the ousted Taliban movement said guerrillas
shot down the plane with a Stinger missile, but British Defense
Secretary Des Browne said the crash appeared to be "a terrible accident."