The southern Afghan province of Helmand, where the Taliban have taken control of a district capital for several days, is at the heart of a drug empire that supplies Europe with most of its opium.
And the growing cultivation of opium poppies mirrors the rise in the Taliban-led insurgency that is funded by the narco-traffic, United Nations experts say.
The province last year saw a 179% rise in production of opium which, at 2 800 tonnes, is close to half of that of the whole country.
Afghanistan produces about 90% of the world’s opium, most of it ending up in Europe, Russia and Central Asia.
Eighty percent of the province’s farmers grow opium, with cultivation increasing sixfold in 2006 in the province’s northern district of Musa Qala, which on Friday fell into Taliban hands.
This growth was accompanied by an explosion across most of the country last year in Taliban-linked violence, with particular hotspots being Helmand and neighbouring Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban.
Production and trafficking occurs “under the protection of organised criminal groups, like the mafia, and the Taliban”, says Nazir Ahmad Shah, a project director in the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
“There is a direct link between the insecurity, the absence of rule of law and drug trafficking,” says Christina Gynna Oguz, UNODC representative in Kabul.
Oguz says the government should “retake control” of these regions, which she says are off limits to international organisations because of the poor security.
In her opinion, a controversial accord reached at the end of September between the tribal chiefs of Musa Qala, the government and British troops serving with a Nato force in Helmand was “a success for the drug traffickers”.
“Just after the signing of the peace accord giving control of the region to tribal chiefs, five laboratories producing heroin appeared in Musa Qala,” adds Ahmad Shah.
Another laboratory is in the south of the province, close to the border with Pakistan. Under the terms of the deal, the Musa Qala tribal chiefs recruited an auxiliary police service — men who are trained for about two weeks in a form of “community police”.
This force was the only security presence on the ground, and was easily overwhelmed by the Taliban who rode into town late on Thursday.
Despite its part in the agreement, the Afghan government has also been critical of the accord, saying it does nothing to enforce the government’s presence in Pashtun areas traditionally outside of official authority.
“This is not in the interest of establishing a strong powerful government,” Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said on Sunday.
But the administration has itself been accused of turning a blind eye to the involvement of senior government officials and former warlords, whom observers say have no interest in seeing stability in southern Afghanistan.
The counternarcotics ministry says it is waiting for proof.
“If there is proof that officials are implicated in the trafficking of drugs, they will be dismissed — but there is no proof,” says ministry spokesperson Zalmai Afzali.
“We are doing everything we can to fight this trafficking which is financing the enemies of Afghanistan and notably their purchase of weapons,” he said, referring to the Taliban.
Meanwhile an internationally funded programme to tackle the problem by ploughing up poppy fields is far from meeting its promises: about 15 000 hectares of poppies out of 165 000 hectares were destroyed in 2006, according to UN estimates.
“The insurgency hinders the implementation of this programme,” says Oguz. “In Helmand province less than 10% of the poppy production was eradicated last year.” – AFP