AFGHAN DRUG TRADE FUNDING TERROR GROUPS, SAYS UN

KABUL - The US-led coalition force in Afghanistan must address the
country's drug trade because the huge opium and heroin crops are being used
by militants to fund their activities, the top UN drug official has warned.

Mr Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Vienna-based UN Office on
Drugs and Crime, said in an interview here on Tuesday that there were
indications that persons carrying out violence in Afghanistan were
financing their attacks with drug trafficking, and in some places forcing
farmers to grow opium poppies.

'The terrorists and traffickers are the same people,' he said at the end of
a week-long visit to Afghanistan. 'You cannot fight the war against terror
without going against drug trafficking.'

Mr Costa said that he had asked the US-led forces here several times to
focus on the drug trade, and that he had seen reports that military forces
had recently intercepted drug traffickers and had destroyed at least one
illegal heroin laboratory.

Poppy cultivation has spread in the last year in the northern province of
Badakhshan. There seems to be little interference from the authorities
here, although the government in Kabul has outlawed growing opium poppies.

Officials cite a power vacuum and lack of central government control, as
well as poverty, and the influence of drug traders and militants for the
increase in production. -- New York Times

$2.1b Worth Of Illicit Trade

* Afghanistan was the world's largest source of illicit opium last year,
producing 3,810 tonnes, the UN Office of Drugs and Crime says. This year's
harvest is expected to be as much.

* The UN agency estimates that the poppy crop brought US$1.2 billion (S$2.1
billion) to farmers and traders last year.

* That is double the Afghan government's yearly budget and roughly the
amount spent by the donor countries on reconstruction in Afghanistan last year.

* The amount of money 'has very major political and military implications',
said the agency's executive director, Mr Antonio Maria Costa.

* He said Afghanistan was in danger of falling into the hands of violent
drug traders.