AFGHANS BEGIN POPPY-ERADICATION PROGRAM

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Driving tractors through fields of poppy
plants, Afghan counternarcotics agents started a major opium
eradication campaign Wednesday in the heartland of the world's
largest producer of illicit drugs.

The effort comes amid warnings of another bumper crop that would feed
millions of heroin addicts in Asia and the West and endanger
Afghanistan's emerging democracy.

Some 1,000 heavily armed police and soldiers guarded the drug agents
because Taliban insurgents have threatened to defend the poppy farms,
said provincial administrator Ghulam Muhiddin.

However, there were no reports of violence as about 100 tractors
moved across the poppy fields, grinding up the young plants in
southern Helmand province's Dishu district, he said.

The eradication, part of a U.S.- and British-funded initiative, comes
two days after the Afghan government and the United Nations warned
that they expect cultivation of opium poppies to increase across
large swaths of the country this year.

The government has been criticized for not being tough enough on the
drug trade. Counternarcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi has even
accused senior government officials of involvement.

Afghanistan is the source of nearly 90 percent of the world's opium
and heroin, even though the international community has pumped
hundreds of millions of dollars into fighting the trade since the
Taliban regime was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

When the Taliban ran Afghanistan, its leader banned poppy growing,
and cultivation dropped to practically nothing in 2000.

But Afghan and Western counternarcotics officials say the Taliban
militia fighting the U.S.-backed government is now implicated in the
drug trade, and uses the proceeds to help fund its insurgency.

Poppy eradication started in Kandahar province two weeks ago. About a
quarter of Afghanistan's opium is produced in Helmand, more than
double the amount of any other province.

"We have started in Dishu and we will work our way up from the south
of Helmand to the north, destroying poppies in every district and
village," Muhiddin said.

Nationwide, Afghan authorities plan to destroy 50,000 acres of poppy
fields. Last year, opium was harvested from about 257,000 acres,
yielding more than 4,500 tons of opium.

A Western diplomat said that for Afghanistan to avoid becoming a
narco-state, it needs not only to sustain the eradication program,
but to crack down on mid- and high-level traffickers and corruption.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The diplomat said wiping out poppy fields in Helmand was the key to
controlling opium production in the country.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has earmarked $146
million this year for economic development and export-oriented
farming projects meant to wean Afghans from the crop.

The U.S. funds are being used to provide farmers with alternative
crops and livelihoods, such as fruit orchards and vegetable gardens,
and to build roads and other infrastructure needed for a strong rural economy.