SECOND RECORD LEVEL FOR AFGHAN OPIUM CROP

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Opium cultivation in Afghanistan grew by 17
percent in 2007, reaching record levels for the second straight year,
according to a United Nations report released Monday.

Despite a $600 million American counternarcotics effort and an
increase in the number of poppy-free provinces to 13 from 6, the
report found that the amount of land in Afghanistan used for opium
production is now larger than amount of land used for coca
cultivation in all of Latin America.

Afghanistan now accounts for 93 percent of the world's opium, up from
92 percent last year, the report said.

Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crimes Policy, which issued the report, called
the new figures terrifying. "Afghanistan today is cultivating
megacrops of opium," he said at a news conference. "Leaving aside
China in the 19th century, no other country has produced so much
narcotics in the past 100 years."

Mr. Costa described a "divided" Afghanistan, with opium production
dropping in the relatively stable north, and growing in the south,
the center of an insurgency. There, Taliban militants control large
areas and have encouraged farmers to grow opium. Production in the
south has also become more sophisticated, with the number of labs
processing opium into heroin growing to 50 from 30 in Helmand
Province, local officials said.

The report is likely to spark renewed debate over an American-backed
proposal for the aerial spraying of opium crops with herbicide.
Afghan and British officials have opposed aerial spraying, saying it
would increase support for the Taliban among farmers who fear the
herbicide would poison them and their families. A proposal to carry
out pilot programs where herbicide would be sprayed by ground
eradication teams is now being considered, according to Western officials.

Mr. Costa called for NATO troops to begin playing a more active role
in countering trafficking by supporting Afghan counternarcotics
operations and providing additional intelligence. He said that after
two years of NATO and American officials reacting skeptically to his
requests for more military involvement in counternarcotics, there was
a growing consensus that the drug trade finances the insurgency.

"I am a lot more optimistic," he said. "The perception I have is that
our call is not falling any longer on deaf ears."

In Helmand Province, which produces more opium than any other country
in the world, there are now 7,000 British NATO troops, the largest
concentration of foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Helmand had a 48 percent increase in opium production in 2007, the
report said. The province, which is twice the size of Maryland,
produced 53 percent of Afghanistan's opium this year, up from roughly
42 percent last year.

The northeastern province of Nangrahar, which had reduced cultivation
in recent years, experienced a 285 percent increase in opium
cultivation in 2007, the report found. The Southwestern province of
Farah, the scene of increased Taliban activity, experienced a 93
percent increase.

On the day the report was released, NATO and American officials
announced the deaths of five foreign soldiers. Three American
soldiers were killed Monday in Kunar in the northeast, American
officials said. And officials announced that a NATO soldier was
killed Monday in the eastern Afghanistan and a Dutch soldier was
killed Sunday in Oruzgan in the south.

United Nations officials track opium cultivation through ground
surveys and satellite images. The survey found that the number of
hectares in Afghanistan cultivated with poppies grew to 193,000 in
2007, from 165,000 in 2006, a 17 percent increase. Favorable weather
led to high yields, with the estimated opium produced rising to 9,000
tons in 2007, from 6,700 tons in 2006, a 34 percent increase.

The report notes that no large increase in world demand for opium has
occurred in recent years and that supply from Afghanistan "exceeds
global demand by an enormous margin." It said up to 3,300 tons of
opium was being stockpiled in Afghanistan.

Terrorist groups could be stockpiling the drug, the report warned.
"Opium stockpiles, a notorious store of value, could once again be
used to fund international terrorism," it said.

Mr. Costa chastised Afghan officials and Western nations for not
adding one name to a United Nations Security Council list of major
drug traffickers linked to terrorism. The eight-month-old list calls
for traffickers to be arrested and their assets seized.

Earlier, he said that this year's result suggested greed, not
poverty, was driving the opium trade

The provinces in the north that cut opium cultivation are relatively
poor, he said. Those in the south that increased production, like
Helmand, are comparatively wealthy. Over time, he said, opium would
also distort the economy of southern Afghanistan.

"The longer we let this cancer spread the deeper it's going to get
into the economic system," he said. "And the more difficult it's
going to be to cut it out."