U.S. WARNS AFGHAN VIOLENCE WILL WORSEN

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's Taliban-led insurgency is likely
to worsen this year as new NATO troops replace battle-hardened
American forces in some areas and the government pushes ahead with an
aggressive anti-drug campaign, a senior U.S. envoy said.

The warning by Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state
for South and Central Asia, comes after an uptick in attacks in
recent weeks as spring weather melts snow on high mountain passes the
rebels use.

Last year was the deadliest for rebel violence since U.S.-led forces
ousted the Taliban in 2001. Some 1,600 people, including 91 U.S.
troops, were killed. That was more than double the total in 2004.

"We will probably see a rise in violence this year as NATO spreads
into areas in a more dense fashion, as the insurgents try to test the
new forces (and) as the government takes on the narcotics traffickers
in new areas," Boucher told reporters in Kabul.

He said the rebels "certainly have the ability to continue doing what
they are doing for a while and be very nasty."

NATO is gradually assuming control of security in Afghanistan from a
U.S.-led coalition. By midyear, NATO troops are set to take over
volatile southern regions and by September they are expected to
control the entire country.

The United States will keep about 16,000 soldiers here, down from
their current levels of about 19,000, but they will be under NATO
command. The British, the Dutch and the Canadians have deployed
thousands of soldiers in recent months.

Many Afghans believe the U.S. drawdown indicates the start of a
gradual withdrawal, but U.S. officials suggested otherwise.

U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann, speaking alongside Boucher, said the
Taliban have the impression that with time, they will gradually wear
out the patience of foreign governments to keep their troops deployed here.

"There was a Taliban leader who said to one of our folk that the
coalition has all the clocks, but we have all the time," Neumann
said. "That is the way they tend to see the world, that they can
out-wait the foreigners."

But Boucher said U.S. forces were going to stay.

"People are going to see us here for a long time to come," he said.

In the latest violence, insurgents fatally shot a Turkish road
engineer and burned his body in Nimroz province Sunday, said Ghulam
Dastagir Azad, the provincial governor. A purported Taliban
spokesman, Mohammed Hanif, claimed responsibility.

In neighboring Helmand province Sunday, a firefight between a group
of insurgents and police left one officer and a rebel dead, and two
police wounded, said Mohanned Qasin, a local government chief.

Helmand is Afghanistan's main poppy growing region. On Monday Afghan
anti-drug forces raided Bahram Chah, which the Ministry of Interior
described as a "drug trafficking town" near the border with Pakistan.

Some 165 pounds of opium resin were seized and one person was
arrested, a ministry statement said.

Afghanistan supplies nearly 90 percent of the world's opium and
heroin and some of the profits from the illicit business are believed
to go to the Taliban.

The government, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. and
British money, has launched a campaign to forcibly eradicate poppies
in many areas - a move that is believed to have prompted armed
resistance from traffickers.