Pubdate: Wed, 31 Aug 2005
Source: Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
Copyright: Arab News 2005
Contact:  http://www.arabnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3617
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

AFGHAN DRUG WARS BIGGEST THREAT, US GENERAL SAYS

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan - For the foreign troops stationed in this remote and 
sun-baked north Afghanistan mountain valley, the enemy is all around - 
fields of opium poppy cover much of the parched earth. A recent spike in 
attacks has made life more dangerous for the international soldiers here as 
the poor and war-ravaged country heads for Sept. 18 parliamentary 
elections, the first in more than three decades.

But while insurgents pose a threat to the contingent, the biggest danger, 
soldiers here say, comes from warlords who control the lucrative opium 
trade that floods the streets of far-away Europe with heroin. "The enemy's 
motivation is mainly criminal, not political," said Col. Peter Baierl, the 
German commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in the northeastern 
city of Faizabad.

"Smugglers and drug wars" are ravaging parts of the district, areas where 
foreign soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force 
are "not particularly welcome," he said. The colonel was speaking on the 
day his country's visiting Defense Minister Peter Struck voiced concern 
about the security of 400 German troops based here and at a base in Kunduz.

The Faizabad contingent, where German troops work with Czech, Dutch and 
Danish soldiers, focuses on reconstruction and development work and on 
providing security, but the soldiers are not supposed to engage in combat. 
Faced with the interrelated problems of the illicit drugs trade, extreme 
poverty and the smoldering insurgency, the ISAF troops here call themselves 
"development aid workers with guns," one officer said.

In a morale-boosting address to the German troops, Struck said that without 
the presence of international troops, Afghanistan would be left at the 
mercy of "warlords, drug dealers and the Taleban". Loyalists of the ousted 
Islamic government have attacked US-led coalition forces, especially in the 
south and east, raising the death toll from violence this year to about 
1,000 - surpassing last year's total.

But in some other parts of Afghanistan, drug barons have posed the largest 
threat, using profits from the illicit harvest to finance small private 
armies that often outgun the under-funded and poorly-trained national 
police. On their patrols, German troops say they pass opium fields almost 
daily. But their mandate does not include the eradication of the crop, an 
issue that has been debated but not resolved in the German Parliament.

Fighting the drug scourge was the "duty of the Afghan army," said Struck. 
The job of the foreign troops was to give "logistical support" to their 
host government and report the locations of poppy fields.

"It is not like we are not doing anything," the minister said. The local 
troops know that moving aggressively against opium cultivation and 
production would place them into the firing line of the drug gangs. The 
security situation is already "uncertain and unstable," said Baierl.

The past week alone had seen several serious incidents: a grenade hit a 
troop tent that, luckily, was empty, and two explosive devices were found 
and defused by the side of a road patrolled daily by the foreign troops. 
After talks with local troops on Monday, Struck called the situation 
"threatening" and voiced fears that the insurgents and other enemies would 
increasingly "launch massive attacks against foreign forces".
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman