UK FEARS RECORD AFGHAN HEROIN OUTPUT

The Afghanistan province being patrolled by British troops will
produce at least one third of the world's heroin this year, according
to drug experts who are forecasting a harvest that is both a record
for the country and embarrassing for the western funded war on narcotics.

British officials are bracing themselves for the result of an annual
UN poppy survey due later this summer. Early indications show an
increase on Helmand's 1999 record of 45,000 hectares (112,500 acres)
and a near-doubling of last year's crop.

"It's going to be massive," said one British drugs official. "My
guess is it's going to be the biggest ever." UN, American and Afghan
officials agreed.

"It could be over 50,000 hectares, or over 50% of the total [Aghan]
crop," said General Muhammad Daud, the deputy interior minister for
counter-narcotics. Helmand's bumper harvest highlights the dramatic
failure of western counter-narcotics efforts that have cost at least
$2bn (about UKP1.09bn) since 2001. It could undo progress made last
year, when poppy cultivation dropped 21% after President Hamid
Karzai's call for a "jihad" on drugs. And it spells particularly bad
news for Britain, which is leading the anti-narcotics campaign and
has deployed 3,300 soldiers to the large and lawless province.

As Afghanistan accounts for almost 90% of the world's heroin supply,
that would mean Helmand supplies about one-third. Drug experts say
the province is as central to Afghanistan's illegal economy as
California is to America's legal one.

"If you took Helmand out of the picture, Afghanistan would fall from
the world's top poppy grower to second or third place," said one US
official. British and American officials cannot resort to the tactics
of the Taliban, which slashed poppy cultivation to 8,000 hectares in
2001 by threatening to shoot farmers. But western efforts using less
violent methods, such as encouraging farmers to grow legal crops,
have proved fruitless.

The smuggling kingpins who control the UKP1.5bn trade have become
rich, powerful and apparently untouchable. Although several hundred
low-level couriers have been arrested, not one "big fish" has been
tried in Afghanistan - a critical failing according to analysts.
"Until Karzai arrests and jails one big dealer, people will not
believe the central government is behind this drive," said a former
American anti-narcotics contractor.

The most damaging allegations swirl around the minister charged with
counter-narcotics, Gen Daud. Several western officials allege Gen
Daud, a former Tajik warlord, has historical and family links to
smuggling. Gen Daud denies the allegations as "politicking" and
blames the British embassy for trying to slur his reputation.

"It is very shameful for a big country with such a good reputation to
make allegations like this. They should first investigate, and if
they have any proof bring it forward," he said at his office.

As proof of his modest wealth, Gen Daud said the government paid his
rent, his children walked to school and one of his brothers worked as
a taxi driver in Saudi Arabia.

Sour relations with the drugs minister are not the only problem
facing British officials in tackling this year's bumper crop.
American congressmen are ratcheting up pressure to start poppy
eradication using pesticide-spraying planes, a controversial tactic.
Aerial spraying has been used extensively against coca plantations in
Colombia but is trenchantly opposed by British and Afghans officials,
who say it would be disastrous in Afghanistan. "It could drive
farmers into the hands of the insurgents," said one.

But an American official predicted that without a dramatic drop in
next year's crop, spraying could lead to a UK-US rift by 2008.
"Spraying will continue to be a cloud on the horizon and it will get
darker," he said.

In Helmand British commanders insists the 3,300 soldiers will avoid
tackling drugs in favour of providing security and development funds.
"We have to put the things in place that will make it no longer
necessary to grow poppy," said a senior officer.

But drug experts say it will be impossible to avoid the drugs war.
Britain's main enemy, the Taliban, has developed close links to drug
smugglers, sometimes providing them with weapons and vehicles. On
Sunday a British soldier, named as Captain Jim Philippson, became the
first combat fatality in Helmand after a battle with suspected Taliban forces.