NATO TAKES ON TURMOIL IN SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN

Military Alliance Faces Growing Taliban Power, Opium Trade

KABUL, Afghanistan - Southern Afghanistan, homeland of the Taliban and
hub of the global heroin trade, is spinning out of control. Islamic
militants are launching suicide attacks, corrupt authorities are
undermining the central government, and a disgruntled population is
hooked on growing opium.

On Monday, fixing Afghanistan's biggest problem area falls to NATO,
the Western military alliance. This promises to be the toughest combat
mission in NATO's 57-year history, and a stern test for a powerful
force with surprisingly little experience in fighting.

"A lot of different forces are coalescing to drive the coalition out,"
said Joanna Nathan, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.
"It's not just Taliban. It's a complex alliance of people who don't
want to see the rule of law in Afghanistan."

The future of Afghanistan as a Western-style democracy could ride on
the success or failure of the 8,000 mostly British, Dutch and Canadian
forces that have moved into the southern region.

Nearly five years after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban regime
that hosted al-Qaida, the country is in danger of again becoming an
international terrorist haven.

And with the Arab-Israeli conflict raging and Iraq mired in sectarian
daily violence, failure in Afghanistan would leave the West in
disarray on three of its main battlegrounds in the war on terror.

The credibility of the 26-nation Western military alliance,
established in 1949 to deter the Soviet bloc, is also at stake. While
it has engaged in peace missions and aerial bombing campaigns, such as
in Kosovo in 1999, NATO has limited experience in ground combat.

Francesc Vendrell, the European Union's special representative for
Afghanistan, said Wednesday that because of the concerns over
Afghanistan's future, NATO must not fail. "We are not going to
tolerate any kind of haven for terrorists in Afghanistan," he said.

The strong rhetoric reflects growing concern that the multinational
effort to bring democracy and stability to Afghanistan is going awry.
Over the past year, Taliban-led militants regained effective control
over large tracts of their southern heartland. They have adopted
destructive terrorist tactics seen in Iraq and have launched major
attacks, this month even managing to briefly control two southern
towns -- unprecedented during the previous four years.

Another pressing concern is the drug trade. Last year, Afghanistan
produced nearly 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw material of
heroin. Much of it is grown by poppy farmers in the south.

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in Western anti-narcotics
assistance, diplomats expect opium output to have increased this year,
and say provincial government officials and police are still involved
in drug trafficking.

U.N. special representative Tom Koenigs said the insurgency is fueled
by international terrorist networks. Other officials say militants
include a hard core of Taliban, students from religious schools in
neighboring Pakistan, Afghan villagers who are paid to fight, and drug
militias. An official of NATO's International Security Assistance
Force conceded that the fierce Taliban response came as a surprise as
its 18,000-strong force expanded from the relatively stable north and
west to the south in recent months. "We assumed we would be tested,
especially in the run-up to the handover when we were a bit wet behind
the ears," said the official, who requested anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the issue.

"What we didn't predict was the level of the resistance or the fact
that they (the Taliban) would stand their ground and fight."
Ultimately, success of the mission lies beyond the power of troops on
the ground. Rebuilding Afghanistan requires international aid and
concerted action by Hamid Karzai's increasingly unpopular
administration to fight corruption. Western and U.N. officials also
say that for NATO's mission to succeed, neighboring Pakistan must
prevent Taliban commanders and militants from operating from its soil
- -- although Pakistan's government, a key U.S. anti-terror ally,
bristles at suggestions that it doesn't do enough. Developments
Saturday U.S.-led coalition forces detained four suspected al-Qaida
operatives in eastern Afghanistan accused of planning attacks on
coalition and Afghan forces. A major operation to crush Taliban
fighters in the south moved to a close, officials said, as U.S.-led
coalition forces and Afghan police killed or wounded 18 suspected
Taliban militants in fighting that also left two policemen dead.