"They are the ones with the planes," said Abdul Ahmad, brother of the shepherd, Abdullah.
Between them, the brothers had lost 200 animals from symptoms that suggested poisoning, he said.
While the mystery lingers around who may be responsible for a secret aerial eradication campaign here -- or even whether one is actually being carried out -- there is no doubt that Afghanistan's booming poppy crop has been an intensifying concern to United States, British and other international officials.
In November, a U.N. report found that more than 300,000 acres in Afghanistan had been planted with poppies and expressed concern that the country was degenerating into a narcostate. US and other officials said they feared the drug trade had insinuated itself into virtually every corner of the Afghan economy and was financing rebels.
Some US officials, particularly those in international narcotics and law enforcement, have for months advocated aerial spraying to gain control of the problem.
Diplomats and other foreign officials involved in agriculture programs and counternarcotics efforts here said there was a discussion in 2004 between US officials and other donors over whether to use aerial eradication to stem poppy cultivation, which expanded 64 percent last year.
In December, the Bush administration presented to Congress a budget request for US$152 million for aerial spraying as part of a US$776 million aid package for counternarcotics operations in Afghanistan for 2005.
In January, it dropped the budget line for aerial spraying because of Karzai's clear opposition, a US official in Kabul said. Word of the budget request prompted 31 nonprofit groups, led by CARE International, to sign an open letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Jan. 31 expressing concern over what they considered the excessive emphasis on eradication in the US administration's counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan.
"Widespread eradication in 2005 could undermine the economy and devastate already poor families without giving rural development projects sufficient time to provide alternative sources of income," the agencies warned. They called for concentration on interdiction of traffickers and support for farmers instead.
Yet US officials have not ruled out the possible need for aerial eradication and financing, which was included in a supplemental request in February for US$82 billion by the Bush administration for Iraq and Afghanistan, a US counternarcotics official in Kabul said.
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