Higher opium yields ‘will fuel Taleban insurgency’
Afghanistan is facing an explosive growth in opium-yielding poppy crops this year that will fuel the Taleban insurgency, the American commander of Nato forces in Kabul predicted yesterday.
General Dan McNeill said he foresaw a rise in suicide attacks and roadside bombs, paid for by profits from the illicit drugs trade.
“When I see a poppy field, I see it turning into money and then into IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and Kalashnikovs,” General McNeill told a news conference in Kabul.
Senior British officials have indicated that more measures would be taken this year to reduce the opium trade in Afghanistan. But General McNeill appeared to suggest that there would be little change in the approach taken by the coalition to the poppy farmers and drugs barons.
“I expect to see another year of explosive growth in poppy and I think that will again complicate the security sector,” he said. “Does it concern me? Yes, greatly.”
Last year Afghanistan produced more than 8,200 tonnes of opium, much of it from poppy farms in the south, where about 7,000 British troops are deployed.
General McNeill said that he expected the Taleban to continue to use roadside bombs and suicide bombings. More than 140 such attacks were carried out last year, he said.
He revealed that last year was the worst 12 months of violence in Afghanistan since the Taleban regime was overthrown in 2001.
More than 6,000 people were killed, although many of them were Taleban insurgents. About 1,000 Afghan civilians and 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces died, and almost 220 troops from the 40,000-strong Nato International Security Force (Isaf) were also killed � 41 of them British.
Yesterday an Isaf soldier and an Afghan interpreter were killed in a bomb explosion in the province of Khost on the border with Pakistan. Two other Isaf soldiers were wounded when their vehicle was hit by an IED.
General McNeill admitted that Isaf remained “underresourced” but he doubted that Nato would provide more troops this year. “I don’t expect the members of the alliance can offer up a great number more,” he said.
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