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NATO general predicting huge Afghan poppy yield

The US general in charge of NATO's Afghanistan mission said on Wednesday he expected another year of "explosive growth" in the country's poppy fields.

General Dan McNeill said NATO commanders in Europe have told him to step up the counternarcotics fight this year, "and I will."

"The money associated with poppy and opiate production continues to appear to be very good," McNeill told a news conference. "So without pressure or incentives or dissuasion to keep people from growing it, I expect the amount grown next year to increase."

After a record haul in 2006, Afghan farmers increased opium production by 34 percent last year. Afghanistan last year produced 93 percent of the world's opium, the main ingredient in heroin. Its export value was estimated at US$4 billion.

McNeill, the commander of the 39-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), recalled being shown a photo of a man and his two boys -- both under age 10 -- scraping the resin out of poppies in western Afghanistan.

"When I was the age of those boys I remember two things my father taught me: One was to fish ... to this day I am still a pretty good fisherman. He also taught me to use hand tools. To this day I can make a piece of furniture," he said. "If these two boys live as long as I do, ... what are they likely to do with the skills they learn at that age?"

NATO's leaders in Brussels have made clear, McNeill said, that he is to use the current ISAF mandate to its fullest extent "to help the people of Afghanistan rid themselves of this scourge, and that will be our intent."

He said that NATO would not be involved in eradication of poppies from the fields, but could bear down on drug growers and dealers connected to the insurgency.

Links between drug growers and insurgents have been suspected to be growing in recent years. Proof of that was made clear when Afghan and NATO forces last month recaptured the town of Musa Qala in Helmand Province, the world's largest poppy-growing region.

When Afghan and NATO forces moved into the town, they found dozens of heroin labs and stockpiles of drugs worth US$500 million in street value, US Ambassador William Wood said.

McNeill estimated that insurgents get 20 percent to 40 percent of their income from drugs, but he said some UN officials have told him the number could be as high as 60 percent.

"So when I see a poppy field, I see it turning into money that turns into [weapons] that are used to kill Afghans and members of the International Security Assistance Force," he said.
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