US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan yesterday to review preparations for the October presidential election and go over reconstruction and counternarcotics programs.
During a daylong visit, he planned consultations with Afghan and UN officials, as well as meetings with senior US military officials.
PHOTO: AP
Before flying to the Afghan capital, he said US-led coalition forces are preparing a coordinated effort to attack the narcotics trade in the country, recognizing that drug income could be used to fund insurgents and terrorists in the country.
He offered few specifics, but noted the British government previously has taken the lead in working with President Hamid Karzai's administration to address the drug trade in Afghanistan.
"There are plans being finished now," Rumsfeld said Tuesday, in Oman for the first of several visits to US allies in the region. "I don't want to get into whose troops will do what."
The cultivation of opium poppies has resumed and flourished since 2001 in Afghanistan. It was largely eliminated under the Taliban's religious policing, but farmers have resumed cultivating and harvesting the profitable crop in the chaos since the fall of the Taliban.
American military commanders in Afghanistan have said previously they don't have enough troops to go after the poppy trade and still hunt Taliban and al-Qaeda holdouts.
Rumsfeld seemed resigned that the poppy trade would continue to some degree, saying demand for the drug will always lead someone to create a supply. Heroin made from Afghan poppies generally reaches markets in Europe and Russia.
"All crops have been good the last two years," he said of Afghanistan's poppy cultivation. "It is a terrible thing. It produces great wealth for people who use it to harm society."
The criminal elements are naturally opposed to a strong, democratic government in Afghanistan, he said. He also suggested drug money had ties to Taliban or al-Qaeda, but provided no concrete information to back that up.
UN surveys estimate Afghanistan accounted for three quarters of the world's opium last year, and the trade brought in US$2.3 billion, more than half of the nation's GDP.
New surveys suggest even more has been planted this year, with Robert Charles, the US State Department's top counternarcotics official, saying Afghanistan may be on pace for a world record opium poppy crop this year.
Rumsfeld pointed to the drug war in Colombia as a partial model for efforts in Afghanistan. There, US-trained military forces attack narcotics smuggling routes while the Colombian government tries to eradicate coca growth in the farmlands through aerial spraying.
The costly Colombian campaign, a US$3.3 billion, five-year military aid package known as Plan Colombia, has provided Colombian forces with training, equipment and intelligence. It has led to a huge increase in drug seizures, and closer judicial cooperation between the countries has led to the extradition of 120 alleged drug traffickers to the US for trial in two years.
Despite the progress, cocaine prices on US streets remain unchanged, a sign that there is no shortage of the drug. And the program to fly crop dusters over Colombian coca fields and spray them with herbicides has drawn sharp criticism from environmental and other groups.
Meanwhile, Rumsfeld hailed Afghanistan's efforts to prepare for presidential elections in October, citing figures saying more than 9 million Afghans have registered to vote, including 3.5 million women.
"If those numbers prove out, that's an enormously successful registration process," he said.
Karzai is clearly the American favorite, but Rumsfeld and other officials have avoided endorsing him, saying the US government will work with whomever the Afghan voters choose.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS