AFGHAN MILITANTS LINKED TO DRUGS TRADE

The head of US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan yesterday admitted there
were growing signs of links between Muslim terrorist groups and the drugs
trade in Afghanistan.

David Barno, commanding general, said the number of incidents where counter
terrorist operations uncover illegal drugs had increased in recent months.

His comments signal a growing readiness among senior US military officials
to link terrorist groups to a booming opium industry Afghanistan. It is the
world's leading source of poppies used to make opium and heroin. Much of
the heroin sold in western countries originates in Afghanistan. Poppy
production has increased since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

US officials told the Financial Times this week they feared that
Afghanistan may produce its largest poppy harvest this year.

The Afghan government and the United Nations have expressed growing alarm
over the past year about the nexus between militant groups' financing and
opium profits, but until recently US military officials said they had
little solid evidence.

Western officials familiar with US military policy said the Pentagon was
unwilling to be drawn into the war on drugs or confront provincial
militiamen on whom the coalition relies for operational support.

Gen Barno said it was too early to identify a trend but acknowledged that
"we are encountering more occasions where, during the conduct of counter
terrorist operations, we uncover drugs or some relationship to drug
activities".

A counter-terrorism raid "two or three weeks ago" in Uruzgan province, a
Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, had led to a firefight and the
discovery of poppy paste that, had it been converted to heroin, would have
had a street value of $15m (UKP18m), Gen Barno told journalists in Berlin.

Gen Barno was speaking a day after the international Afghanistan conference
in Berlin pledged to clamp down more intensively on poppy producers and
traders.

The Afghan government and its foreign allies have struggled to formulate a
coherent policy for combating the opium industry, wary of using strong-arm
tactics against a population with few economic alternatives.

The US last month announced support for Afghan teams attached to the
interior ministry in Kabul that aim to destroy poppy fields.

The move stirred tensions with the British government, which formally has
the lead role in helping Afghanistan tackle the drugs trade.