AFGHANISTAN'S NEW THREAT: A RESURGENT DRUG TRADE

ISLAMABAD - With the Taleban routed and a new government preparing to take
office, a surge in drug production has become a new threat to Afghanistan.

For the past two decades, the production of opium and its derivative heroin
has played a central role in the shifting frontlines of the war-ravaged
country.

>From the 1979 Soviet occupation to the present day, global drug profits
have lined the pockets of warlords and provided them, and more recently the
Taleban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, with hard currency to consolidate
their personal fiefdoms and wage military campaigns.

However, the ousting of the Taleban has raised international fears of a
major rise in opium production with farmers no longer constrained by the
Islamic militia's ban on poppy cultivation.

Opium production continues to be seen by farmers as the only way to survive
in one of the world's poorest countries, providing them with far greater
returns than wheat.

For the United Nations, currently helping to ease the way for the new
administration of Mr Hamid Karzai, the drug threat is all too real.

'We are concerned but not surprised because opium has long been a part of
the Afghan economy,' said Mr Bernard Frahi, head of the UN Drug Control
Programme (UNDCP) for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

'I have drawn the attention of the new administration to the role they have
to play. Immediate action should be taken to prevent drug cultivation and
drug trafficking,' he said.

Western diplomats have also called on the new Kabul government to take
immediate action to stop opium production from spiralling out of control.

'It's very high on the agenda that the international community has with the
interim government not only for the United States but for Europe where most
of the Afghan-produced opium and heroin ends up,' said an American diplomat.

'The governments of European countries are very concerned.'