AFGHANISTAN: OPIUM WARS

British troops have begun deploying in a Taliban-dominated area
riddled with corruption and tribal rivalries, where the only industry
is growing poppies.

"Would the British let us send soldiers to take over their country?"
The mood among the group of men on the banks of the Helmand River was
menacing. All claimed to be Taliban fighters.

"If one Talib is in a village, the infidels bomb the whole village
and kill innocent people," their leader went on. "The British should
come and fight us face to face and stop using their planes. They have
been here three times and been nicely beaten three times," he added,
referring to ill-fated British imperial adventures of the 19th and
early 20th centuries. "If there were two million foreign soldiers, we
would defeat them if they fought us face to face."

There are already frequent clashes: yesterday Afghan security forces
said they had attacked Taliban militants in a cave complex north of
Lashkargar, capital of the anarchic southern province of Helmand,
where the deployment of 3,500 British soldiers is gathering pace. Two
Taliban fighters were said to have been killed and weapons seized.

Tomorrow comes a less-heralded but no less significant British
military commitment to the country. With the beginning of May, the
British-led Nato command structure known as the ARRC (Allied Rapid
Reaction Corps) starts operating from Kabul. It is the first phase in
a gradual integration of the entire foreign military presence in
Afghanistan under Nato leadership.

By early next year, 14,000 American troops will have been
incorporated into the Nato force. A British lieutenant-general, David
Richards, will command, the first time US forces have served under
the theatre-wide leadership of a foreign general since 1945.

With a resurgent Taliban making inroads in the south, and growing
disillusionment with the Western-backed government of Hamid Karzai,
Nato's Supreme Commander in Europe, US General James Jones, has
called Afghanistan "the most important mission that Nato has
undertaken" in its 58-year history.

What that might mean for ordinary British troops was evident in the
lawless badlands of Helmand last week. In the bazaar at Grishk, an
area of noted Taliban sympathy in the north of the province, British
Paras were patrolling the streets on Thursday. In early February,
close to the town, 200 Taliban fought Afghan forces who were backed
by British Harrier jets.

Violence against British forces has so far been limited to two
suicide bomb attacks on successive Fridays this month, targeting the
British base in Lashkargar. On Friday, the British squaddies guarding
the gate at the base did not appear unduly worried, although a
lance-corporal who declined to be named admitted: "Everyone's parents
are pretty worried."

But a greater concern appeared to be the extreme sunburn afflicting
various pale British soldiers and the possibility that the England
football team might acquire a Brazilian manager.

Many suicide bombings in Afghanistan have so far proved ineffective,
usually killing only the bomber. But the Taliban have shown an
increasing aptitude for another tactic imported from Iraq, the
roadside bomb. The only such attack on British forces injured three
soldiers, two of them seriously. A massive bomb in neighbouring
Kandahar last week obliterated a Canadian armoured vehicle, killing
all four occupants.

In the Grishk bazaar, the mood was a mixture of frustration and
hostility. "I am an enemy of the government and a friend of the
Taliban," said Mohammed Zahir, 48, a storekeeper. His views were
widely echoed. "This Karzai government is a disaster. Under the
Taliban we had good law and order; under this government all the
police are corrupt. Why should we trust foreigners when they are
working side by side with a corrupt government?"

The "good law and order" of the Taliban included chopping off the
limbs of robbers and bulldozing walls on to homosexuals. But, four
years on, many people in Afghanistan's deep south have fond memories
of the Taliban's tough stance and relative lack of corruption.
Helmand has had little development, and the provincial government is
riddled with corruption and tribal nepotism and is heavily involved
in the drugs trade.

British and American pressure produced the removal of Sher Mohammed
Akhundzada, the old governor, last December. A powerful tribal
leader, he was "promoted" by President Karzai to a seat in the upper
house of the new Afghan parliament. No Western official will deny Mr
Akhundzada was deeply embroiled in the drug trade, and although his
replacement is seen as honest, nobody is prepared to say the same of
the old governor's brother, who remains deputy governor, or the
provincial police chief.

Helmand remains an area of grinding poverty where the only source of
wealth is opium production. The British deployment is an effort to
alleviate the poverty and rampant corruption of the province using a
huge civilian component from the Foreign Office and the Department
for International Development.

The opium harvest is now in full swing across Helmand, where swaying
poppy fields press right up to the main roads. One US official said
that with good weather and a minimum 50 per cent rise in the area
under cultivation, a record crop was expected. Eradication efforts by
the central government were, Western officials say, hampered by
bribery of the government eradication teams.

But General Richards has said: "Nato will not be involved in poppy
eradication, because we are deeply cautious that if we get it wrong
and create the wrong environment, we will tip otherwise perfectly
law-abiding and co-operative people into the opposition camp."
Whether such a clear distinction can be drawn between the war on
drugs and the war on the Taliban is debatable.

Poppy farmers across Helmand say the Taliban have cut a deal with the
drugs lords to reduce their operations until after the poppy harvest
ends, several weeks from now, so as not to disrupt opium collection
and transport by attracting government and foreign troops to the area.

The Taliban also have a financial interest: they tax all farmers one
kilogram of opium, and 4.5kg from those producing 45kg or more.

As the sun set over the 1,000-year-old ruins that dot the country
round Lashkargar, the Taliban broke off to pray, warning: "When the
opium harvest is finished, the jihad begins."