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Drug lords a threat to UK campaign in Afghanistan's south

Drug lords in the poppy-filled Sangin valley are emerging as a crucial threat to the British campaign in southern Afghanistan, as soldiers seek to consolidate their hold on Helmand Province in anticipation of an expected Taliban spring offensive.

The valley, a steep-sided expanse of deep green on either side of Helmand River, is a vital thoroughfare for electricity supplies to Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. But to assure the supply, British troops serving in the NATO force, Isaf, will need to pacify the Sangin valley.

"Pretty much all the green you see there is poppy," a British official said during a flight over Helmand.

The valley was a death trap for British paratroopers last year and has been largely avoided so far by the marines who succeeded them.

"It's a no-go area," the official said.

A UK-trained Afghan counter-narcotics unit recently carried out a raid on Sangin, smashing heroin laboratories there.

But dislodging the warlords who control the business would require a sustained effort.

"If Isaf goes in in force in Sangin, the drug lords would go over the hill, and the drug labs with them. It would separate the drug lords from farmers," an official said.

Fourteen hundred British troops are on the way to southern Afghanistan, but will not arrive before the summer, and the most decisive battles could be over by then.

Any offensive would have to be followed up quickly with offers of jobs and alternative crops for the local people.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett visited the British outpost at Lashkar Gah on Thursday to underline the UK's resolve, just days after the announcement of the new troop deployment.

"The message it gives is an important one," she said.

Officers plan to use the same counter-insurgency approach in the Sangin valley that they have used elsewhere in Helmand, accompanying a show of force with a hearts-and-minds campaign.

"We're going to try to persuade the elders in the Sangin valley that there will be a lot of jobs available [if they forsake drugs]," an officer in Lashkar Gah said.

The strategy has been criticized as too soft by US officials, particularly since Feb. 2, when the Taliban seized control of Musa Qala, where British troops had reached a truce with elders to exclude both NATO and Taliban forces.
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