PRODUCTION OF HEROIN ON THE RISE IN BRITISH FORCES' AREA

AFGHAN heroin production has sharply increased this year, with the
biggest rise coming in the very province British troops are supposed
to be helping to stabilise, it emerged yesterday.

United Nations figures expected to be published this weekend will
show that this year's poppy crop is up on last year's as many
poverty- stricken Afghan farmers return to cultivating the crop.

Cutting heroin production is one of Britain's key aims in
Afghanistan, and UK officials familiar with the UN figures yesterday
admitted that this year's rise was in part a result of the slow
progress of development work there.

Most embarrassing of all is the fact that Helmand province, where
more than 5,000 British troops are deployed in a dangerous
"stability" mission, has reported the biggest single annual increase
in poppy production.

"We are expecting a fairly significant rise in the poppy crop this
year," one official said, adding that the bulk of the increase had
come in a handful of the 34 provinces, "particularly Helmand".

Despite this year's setback, officials insist that counter-narcotics
campaigns are succeeding. The poppy crop shrank between 2004 to 2005,
and diplomats insisted that the drug mission "has to be considered in
the long term - we always said the figures would fluctuate."

At the root of the Afghan heroin problem is the country's poverty.
Shattered by more than 30 years of conflict, it is still one of the
world's poorest, despite five years of intense international
development following the toppling of the Taliban.

A Foreign Office official yesterday admitted that development was not
as fast as planned.

"It's probably going, as most things in Afghanistan, rather more
slowly than people might have had ambition for, but it's still moving
in a positive direction," he said.

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Last updated: 30-Aug-06 00:02 BST Comments Add your comment 1.
Colin, Out There / 8:43pm 31 Aug 2006

What are British troops supposed to be doing out there anyway? The
poppy cultivation will go on, as it has for generations. You cannot
'stabilise' a region by force using what will always be seen as a foreign army.

Did we not learn enough about the NorthWest frontier in the 19th
century to last us for ever?

Bring this ill-advised miliitary deployment home.