AFGHAN VIOLENCE ON RISE

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The deadliest three weeks of violence since the
fall of the Taliban has left more than 500 people dead, the U.S-led
coalition said Saturday. The toll included at least 44 deaths last week.

Meanwhile, a top Afghan intelligence agent narrowly survived a bomb
attack on his convoy that killed three other people near the capital,
Kabul. Fighting elsewhere killed six insurgents and three police on
Saturday, officials said.

Much of the recent Taliban fighting is believed funded by the
country's $2.8 billion trade in opium and heroin -- about 90 percent
of the world's supply.

The daily violence has raised fears of a Taliban resurgence almost
five years after the Islamic extremists were driven out by a U.S.-led
invasion for harboring al-Qaida.

A coalition spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, said there would be
no letup in attacks on militants. "We will not be deterred from our
mission to provide a safe and secure environment to the Afghan
people," he said in a U.S. military statement.

In an apparent attempt to kill Kabul's director of government
intelligence, Humayoon Aini, a bomb ripped through the first car in
his convoy late Friday, killing a local politician and two other
people, said Kabul's police chief, Amanullah Ghazar.

Aini, who was in the second car, was unhurt, Ghazar said. The
intelligence director had been returning to the capital from a
meeting in a neighboring district, Ghazar said.

In southern Zabul province Saturday, Afghan troops battled insurgents
for hours, killing two and capturing two, before dozens of others
fled into nearby mountains, army commander Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi said.

Of the more than 44 militants killed last week, more than 30 died in
a battle with Canadian and Afghan troops in Zabul province on Monday,
a coalition statement said.

The Afghan Interior Ministry announced that in the past week 9 tons
of opium and 88 pounds of heroin have been seized in raids across the country.

The United States, Britain and other countries are spending hundreds
of millions of dollars fighting the drug business.