Growth in Afghan drugs trade 'boosting Taliban'

Opium cultivation in rebel-controlled areas in southern Afghanistan is expected to grow this year, a UN report said today.

The report said that Afghanistan, in turmoil since a US-led military operation toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, is also steadily increasing its production of marijuana.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime report claimed that the increase in drugs trade was boosting the funds of the Taliban insurgency.

Afghanistan supplies some 90% of the world’s illicit opium, the main ingredient in heroin, and the Taliban rebels fighting the US-led forces receive up to $100m (€68m) from the drug trade, the UN estimates.

“Indeed, it is the insurgents, the Taliban, that are deriving an enormous funding for their war by imposing... a 10% tax on production,” said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN agency.

Afghanistan cultivated a record 477,000 acres of opium in 2007, a 14% increase on the previous year. Total production, spurred by unusually high rainfall, increased even further, by 34%.

The one bright spot in the report, which was released on the sidelines of an international meeting on Afghanistan in Tokyo, was that area under cultivation outside of the rebel strongholds was expected to fall.

That meant overall cultivation area would stay even or fall slightly in 2008, the report said, though wet weather could boost the productivity of each poppy plant.

Mr Costa and General Khodaidad, Afghanistan’s acting counter-narcotics minister, attributed the stall in overall growth of cultivation to eradication efforts and programmes aimed at convincing farmers to switch to legal crops.

The report showed mixed results in the battle against opium in 2007. Poppy cultivation increased in eight provinces and decreased in 26, including 13 that became poppy-free.

Nearly a third of villages said they had received cash advances from drug traffickers to grow poppy. All respondents in the southern region and 72% in the west said they paid taxes to anti-government entities, including mullahs, local commanders and the Taliban, the report said.

None of Afghanistan’s legal crops – such as maize, rice or cotton – can match the income from opium poppies, estimated at 2,000 dollars per acre, the report said.

In addition to opium, the survey found an increase in cannabis cultivation, with 18% of villages planning to grow it in 2008, compared with 13% last year, when some 172,970 acres of cannabis crops were cultivated.

Christina Gynna Oguz, a UN representative in Afghanistan, said the study suggested officials should offer incentives to farmers in the more secure north not to grow poppy.

But in the south, officials have to face an alliance between drug traffickers, corrupt officials, and insurgents.