US envoy visits Taliban defector

The US ambassador to Afghanistan flew to a previously Taliban-held town in the heart of the country's poppy-growing region and told the former Taliban commander now in charge there that Afghans must stop growing poppies.

Ambassador William Wood drank tea and talked with Mullah Abdul Salaam, a former militant commander who defected to the government last month and is now the district leader of Musa Qala in Helmand Province.

US, British and Afghan forces retook Musa Qala last month following 10 months of Taliban rule.

Wood has said officials discovered US$500 million in heroin in dozens of labs around Musa Qala -- the world's largest poppy-growing region.

During Wood's visit on Sunday, he urged Salaam to tell his people to leave behind "the practice of producing poison," and said poppy production was against the law and Islam.

"In Musa Qala the price of bread has risen dramatically. I won't say why -- you know why," Wood said, alluding to farmers' practice of growing poppies instead of needed food.

Wood said UN and Afghan officials have told him that farmers have again been planting a lot of poppies for this season's harvest.

"There is a solution, but it depends on the people of Afghanistan," he said. "The people of Afghanistan have to decide what kind of Afghanistan they want, and we will support them if they choose an Afghanistan of peace, of Islam and of law."

Salaam offered Wood a list of things he said needed to happen immediately for Musa Qala to remain peacefully under government control. Topping the list, he said, was a request to the Ministry of Interior for 200 more police.

"We still have a problem with the police. We need more to come here," he said. "We want the police to be honest and strong, because in the past they have stolen from the people, and because of that the people still don't trust them."

Salaam said one reason he defected was that "un-Islamic" trials were being carried out in Musa Qala on the orders of Pakistani and Chechen fighters.

"The other reason was that they were calling everyone Taliban who were not real Taliban," Salaam said. "They should make a difference between real Taliban and drug users and smugglers. "This place [Musa Qala] was under the control of smugglers, drug dealers, and Islamic law was not implemented here."

Salaam told Wood he wanted to thank the US and Britain for helping Afghans "do jihad" against the Soviets -- a reference to the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation of the country in the 1980s.

Reflecting the danger of travel in the area, the two Black Hawk helicopters carrying Wood's team flew close to the sandy ground, barely skimming over rooftops. The two aircraft, escorted by two Apache helicopter gunships, swerved from side to side as a defensive measure against any possible incoming fire.

Wood said the situation in Musa Qala is "filled with hope."

"One of the elements of that hope is that a former Taliban commander has now not only agreed to support the Constitution and respect the authority of the national government, but as a district governor will defend the Constitution and represent the national government," Wood said.