Pubdate: Mon,  3 Apr 2006
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2006 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.mercurynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Daniel Cooney, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

U.S. WARNS AFGHAN VIOLENCE WILL WORSEN

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's Taliban-led insurgency is likely 
to worsen this year as new NATO troops replace battle-hardened 
American forces in some areas and the government pushes ahead with an 
aggressive anti-drug campaign, a senior U.S. envoy said.

The warning by Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state 
for South and Central Asia, comes after an uptick in attacks in 
recent weeks as spring weather melts snow on high mountain passes the 
rebels use.

Last year was the deadliest for rebel violence since U.S.-led forces 
ousted the Taliban in 2001. Some 1,600 people, including 91 U.S. 
troops, were killed. That was more than double the total in 2004.

"We will probably see a rise in violence this year as NATO spreads 
into areas in a more dense fashion, as the insurgents try to test the 
new forces (and) as the government takes on the narcotics traffickers 
in new areas," Boucher told reporters in Kabul.

He said the rebels "certainly have the ability to continue doing what 
they are doing for a while and be very nasty."

NATO is gradually assuming control of security in Afghanistan from a 
U.S.-led coalition. By midyear, NATO troops are set to take over 
volatile southern regions and by September they are expected to 
control the entire country.

The United States will keep about 16,000 soldiers here, down from 
their current levels of about 19,000, but they will be under NATO 
command. The British, the Dutch and the Canadians have deployed 
thousands of soldiers in recent months.

Many Afghans believe the U.S. drawdown indicates the start of a 
gradual withdrawal, but U.S. officials suggested otherwise.

U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann, speaking alongside Boucher, said the 
Taliban have the impression that with time, they will gradually wear 
out the patience of foreign governments to keep their troops deployed here.

"There was a Taliban leader who said to one of our folk that the 
coalition has all the clocks, but we have all the time," Neumann 
said. "That is the way they tend to see the world, that they can 
out-wait the foreigners."

But Boucher said U.S. forces were going to stay.

"People are going to see us here for a long time to come," he said.

In the latest violence, insurgents fatally shot a Turkish road 
engineer and burned his body in Nimroz province Sunday, said Ghulam 
Dastagir Azad, the provincial governor. A purported Taliban 
spokesman, Mohammed Hanif, claimed responsibility.

In neighboring Helmand province Sunday, a firefight between a group 
of insurgents and police left one officer and a rebel dead, and two 
police wounded, said Mohanned Qasin, a local government chief.

Helmand is Afghanistan's main poppy growing region. On Monday Afghan 
anti-drug forces raided Bahram Chah, which the Ministry of Interior 
described as a "drug trafficking town" near the border with Pakistan.

Some 165 pounds of opium resin were seized and one person was 
arrested, a ministry statement said.

Afghanistan supplies nearly 90 percent of the world's opium and 
heroin and some of the profits from the illicit business are believed 
to go to the Taliban.

The government, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. and 
British money, has launched a campaign to forcibly eradicate poppies 
in many areas - a move that is believed to have prompted armed 
resistance from traffickers.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom