British on front line of new Afghan Poppy War

BRITISH troops are to be placed in the front line of efforts to eradicate poppy crops in southern Afghanistan, the soldier in charge of international forces in the country signalled yesterday.

British soldiers on patrol in the Poppy fields of Helmand Picture: Getty

General Dan McNeill, of the United States, predicted good weather would mean "explosive growth" this year in the illegal opium trade, which is centred on Helmand province and accounts for more than 90 per cent of the heroin on Britain's streets.

UK troops, who are in Afghanistan on a security-and-stability mission, have deliberately avoided eradication operations in Helmand because they are unpopular, dangerous and drive farmers into the hands of the Taleban. But that is about to change as NATO and the international community come under increasing pressure to target Afghanistan's massive heroin economy, which bankrolls the Taleban insurgency.

While Gen McNeill, commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, failed to spell out precisely the role of British soldiers, it is expected they will be asked to help eliminate growers and dealers with links to the Taleban.

The Scotsman can also reveal that Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency is to double its presence in Afghanistan. An additional 15 officers will be deployed to train members of the country's law enforcement agencies to root out corruption.

Gen McNeill said he would take NATO's mandate "to the limit" to support operations against poppy farmers in Helmand, where most of Britain's 7,700 troops are based.

It was the clearest signal yet that he would risk British soldiers' lives to support Afghan poppy eradication teams. A total of 86 UK forces personnel have died in Afghanistan since 2001.

There was a 17 per cent boom in poppy cultivation last year: acre for acre, Helmand is the world's biggest opium producer. Gen McNeill said: "I expect to see another year of explosive growth in poppy that will continue to complicate the security sector."

He went on: "There is a NATO mandate as to what I can do, and the secretary general and the Senior Allied Commander, Europe, have told me to take it to the limit, and I will."

He stressed the NATO alliance was not an eradication force, but said British troops would be used against drug traffickers with links to Taleban fighters.

"When I see poppy fields, I see it turning into money that turns into IEDs (roadside bombs] Kalashnikovs and RPGs (rocket propelled grenades] that are used to kill Afghans and members of the international community," he said. "Where there is a link between narcotics and the insurgent, the NATO mandate allows me to operate against that relationship."

Britain has repeatedly resisted US calls to introduce aerial spraying because counter-narcotics officials fear it would hand a propaganda coup to the Taleban.

But ground-based eradication efforts are fraught with danger. Farmers can mine poppy fields and attack eradication teams. And, so far, ground-based eradication efforts have failed to have any significant impact.

Under the new strategy, UK troops will not be asked to tear up poppy fields themselves but they could be ordered to provide "force protection" for Afghans, which could mean having quick-reaction troops on standby nearby, or securing the fields' perimeters while eradication teams set to work.

Gen McNeill said: "Narcotics is a huge challenge for the people of Afghanistan and an equally huge challenge for the NATO alliance. Poppy is a problem that the government of Afghanistan must take on, but it needs help to do it and it will need international help."

UK troops are reluctant to support eradication teams. But without British support, diplomats fear Afghan eradication teams, backed by US contractors, will be slaughtered by angry drug traffickers and Taleban fighters.

Acknowledging he had little hard data to back him up, Gen McNeill estimated that 20 per cent to 30 per cent of Afghanistan's multibillion-dollar illicit drug economy – vastly bigger than the formal economy – was funding the insurgency.

He predicted that, with rising demand, higher prices and long-term weather forecasts suggesting perfect growing conditions this year, both the industry and insurgency would grow unless "pressure, incentives or dissuasion" were significantly increased.

While the hardline Islamic Taleban managed virtually to eradicate poppy cultivation in the year before they were ousted by the US-led force after the 11 September terrorist attacks on the US, the crop has made a remarkable comeback in the years since western-backed President Hamid Karzai took power.

The Taleban, backed by foreign fighters, including al-Qaeda operatives, have made a comeback, too – and, not coincidentally, in the south and east, the heartland of poppy production.

The poppy, which requires water only once every five days while growing, is a perfect crop for Afghanistan's frequently dry summers and where irrigation is generally provided by snow melt from the mountains.

Western-led crop replacement programmes have worked in areas where security has allowed development and construction projects to develop irrigation schemes to sustain them, but in the Taleban "badlands", the poppy is still king.

Poppy production, which is the main source of income for Afghanistan's 28,000 farmers, has increased from 4,000 tonnes in 2005 to more than 8,000 tonnes this year.

Much of it is turned into heroin inside domestic laboratories controlled by a network of organised criminals, many of whom are thought to have close links with the Afghan government.

The growth in production led to Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador to Afghanistan, warning of a decades-long battle to tackle the problem.

"It paints a very serious picture and we are deeply concerned," he said. "The drugs problem is a symptom of a deeper disease and, as we tackle instability, disorder and the insurgency … we will see poppy production go down.

"The overall conclusion is that there are no magic solutions, no silver bullets, and that this requires patience.

"As experience in Pakistan or Thailand shows, it takes 15 or 20 years to squeeze a cancer like this out of a society as debilitated as Afghanistan's is after 30 years of war."

More British police flown out to tackle their counterparts' corruption

MICHAEL HOWIE
HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT

THE battle by British law-enforcement against organised-crime gangs in Afghanistan responsible for almost the entire supply of heroin to Scotland is to be intensified within weeks, The Scotsman has learned.

The UK-wide Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is about to double the number of its officers operating in the country as efforts shift towards tackling the corruption within local police forces that is facilitating the movement of heroin.

SOCA officers have been based in Afghanistan since the agency was established nearly two years ago, principally targeting the gangs producing and trafficking the drug.

But the main focus of the new squad of about 15 officers will be to train and monitor Afghanistan's law-enforcement authorities. Their corruption has been identified as contributing to escalating heroin trafficking.

An estimated 92 per cent of heroin coming into the UK originates from Afghanistan, and the signs are that the amount of the drug arriving on our shores is increasing, with prices falling and purity levels on the rise.

Last year, a record 421 people in Scotland died from drug overdoses. Heroin was involved in 260 of the deaths, 66 more than the previous year.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that the number of drug addicts in Scotland receiving prescriptions for methadone had risen by 35 per cent over the past five years, reflecting a huge increase in people becoming addicted to heroin.

The Class-A drug is currently available for about £30-£100 per gram, depending on quality. Supplies from Afghanistan are flooding the market, leading to more easily available, cheaper "fixes". Across the UK, average prices fell from £70 per gram in 2000 to £54 in 2005.

Heroin addiction is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds every year, in funding addicts' treatment and also in dealing with crime committed to feed habits.

A SOCA source told The Scotsman that tackling corruption among Afghan authorities would now become a major focus as the agency seeks to cut off more UK-bound heroin.

"There will be a big increase in officers stationed in Afghanistan early in the new year. The main thing they will be focusing on will be monitoring and training of Afghan law-enforcement," said the source.

The scale of the problem is massive. One border police commander in eastern Afghanistan was estimated by counter-narcotics officials to be taking home about £200,000 a month from heroin smuggling.

Last summer, a border police vehicle was stopped outside Kabul and found to be carrying 123.5kg of heroin, worth about £150,000. The five men inside – an officer, three other policemen and a secretary – were under the command of Haji Zahir, formerly the border police commander of Nangarhar province. He was removed from his post, but never charged.

The United Nations has given the Afghan government a list of "Mr Bigs" driving the illegal trade, and the British government has funded a high-security prison for the biggest players.

But progress has been limited, with Gen Khodaidad, the acting minister for counter-narcotics, admitting in the summer their approach to tackling the drugs problem had failed.

The increase in SOCA officers, combined with existing seconded personnel from UK police and customs services, will bring the total number of UK police trainers in Afghanistan above 50, with more than 300 from across the world.

Last night, a Scottish police spokesman said they were working "closer than ever" with law-enforcement groups outside Britain to try to stem the tide of heroin reaching the UK.

Detective Superintendent Willie MacColl, the national drugs co-ordinator for the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said: "It's crucial we work with partners at home and abroad to tackle the flow of drugs into the country. The impact of heroin on communities in Scotland is considerable."

Afghans and US split on how to tackle problem

POPPY cultivation in Afghanistan has soared out of control since the United States-led invasion of 2001.

Tony Blair volunteered Britain as the lead nation in counter narcotics at the Bonn conference in December that year, but heroin production has continued to rise. Most of it comes from the southern province of Helmand.

There are three main proposals in dealing with the crop, aerial spraying, ground eradication and licensing.

The US supports aerial crop spraying. Its ambassador, dubbed "Chemical Bill" Woods, went to Kabul from Colombia, where he backed similar initiatives against the cocaine crop.

But Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has forbidden aerial spraying, and Britain supports his position. UK drug officials believe chemical spraying would hand the Taleban a massive propaganda coup, whether or not the chemicals were ever found to be harmful. "It only takes one sick child or a dead goat and they can blame it on spraying," one diplomat said.

Britain favours ground-based eradication – ploughing, pulling up or chopping down poppy plants – by Afghans.

It is dangerous, because farmers can mine their fields, attack the eradicators or bribe them to leave their crop alone.

Last year, the British let local governors choose which poppy fields should be targeted. The result was that poor farmers unable to bribe the governors were hardest hit. Rocky, unfertile fields were targeted – the best land was left alone.

This year, dedicated teams are choosing farmers to target based on whether they have other incomes.

Alternative livelihoods are a key part of the British approach. Counter-narcotics officials say there is no point destroying someone's poppy crop unless you can help them earn a legitimate living. They say that's impossible until the security situation in Helmand improves to the point where it is safe enough for farmers to get their goods to market along roads free from bandits that haven't been damaged or destroyed by war.

The Senlis Council, a Swiss based think tank, has advocated legalising the poppy crop and buying the opiates for medicinal use. Most Afghan experts dismiss this approach. One charity worker described the group as a "passing-thought tank, not a think tank".

Licensed poppy cultivation can work only with an effective police force, capable of implementing the rule of law, which Afghanistan doesn't have.

"Even if you license every grower in Afghanistan and buy up their poppies, there will always be a market for illegal opium, for heroin," one expert said. "The black-market price will be higher than the licensed price and farmers will supply both. All you achieve is a confusing mixed message to farmers."