NATO: DRUG TRADE BIGGER THREAT THAN INSURGENCY IN AFGHANISTAN

WASHINGTON - The top military commander of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization said Monday that the narcotics trade poses a greater
threat to Afghanistan than a rekindled insurgency by Taliban and
Al-Qaida fighters.

Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, NATO's supreme commander, said he
doesn't believe Taliban and Al-Qaida remnants can "restart an
insurgency of any size or major scope," but that they're part of a
"wider span of problems" that includes the opium trade and rampant criminality.

The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai undertook an opium
eradication program in 2004, and last year Afghanistan experienced a
21 percent decline in land devoted to poppy cultivation, the first
since 2001. But opium production is likely to rise again this year,
according to a U.N. report issued Monday.

The U.N. report, based on a survey carried out in December and
January, said poppy cultivation is increasing in 13 Afghan provinces,
remaining the same in 16 and decreasing in three.

Despite last year's decrease in overall land devoted to poppies, good
weather and a low incidence of plant disease yielded a bumper crop of
opium, the United Nations reported in November.

Last year, Afghanistan produced an estimated 4,100 tons of opium, the
main ingredient in heroin, about 87 percent of the world's supply,
the report said.

Most of the resulting heroin ended up in Europe, which is partly why
NATO member countries have a keen interest in upcoming changes in the
Afghanistan mission, Jones said.

About 21,000 NATO personnel from 36 countries are preparing to take
over stability and security operations in southern and eastern
Afghanistan in coming months. NATO will very likely take over
stability operations throughout Afghanistan by the end of 2006, Jones said.

Jones said NATO troops won't participate directly in eradication of
poppies, but will provide intelligence-gathering and surveillance.

Some U.S. troops will be included in the NATO force, but that number
hasn't been determined. Most U.S. troops, however, will concentrate
on areas in eastern Afghanistan along the Pakistan border, where
Taliban, Al-Qaida and other anti-government groups remain active and
where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials noted that the threat from the insurgency
had hardly disappeared.

Last week, Defense Intelligence Agency chief Lt. Gen. Michael D.
Maples said attacks by Taliban and Al-Qaida forces had increased 20
percent in the past year.

Maples told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the insurgents
represent a greater threat to Afghanistan now "than at any point
since 2001," when U.S. troops and Afghan Northern Alliance rebels
ousted the fundamentalist Taliban government.

A total of 129 soldiers from the United States and its allies died in
Afghanistan last year, more coalition deaths than in any other year
since the Taliban was ousted in 2001, according to icasualties.org, a
Web site that tracks U.S. and allied casualties. Of those, 99 were
Americans. Those fatalities included combat deaths and deaths
resulting from accidents and other non-combat-related causes.

Jones said Monday that a 20 percent increase in attacks "is
statistically not very significant" because the average number of
daily attacks by Taliban and Al-Qaida fighters had been "quite low."

"I don't think we're heading toward a revitalized insurgency," Jones
told reporters at the Pentagon.