Agence France-Presse, 18 October 2007
KABUL (AFP) - The top US general in Afghanistan said Thursday he estimated that Afghanistan's rampant opium poppy cultivation was funding up to 40 percent of the Taliban-led insurgency.
General Dan McNeill, head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), added he had been told by an international expert that this figure was likely low and could reach up to 60 percent.
"It is my best subjective estimate that the insurgency enjoys fiscal resources from the cultivation of poppy probably to the level of 20 to 40 percent of its total fiscal resources," the general told journalists.
The cultivation of opium -- 93 percent of whose world supply comes from Afghanistan, according to the United Nations -- is undermining everything the government and its international allies were trying to do, he said.
Despite internationally backed efforts to cut the drugs trade, Afghanistan's opium production grew by 34 percent this year, according to a UN survey.
There has been pressure on ISAF to be more involved in eradication.
McNeill said this was not the mandate of the 40,000-strong force from 38 nations. "ISAF is neither manned, trained or equipped to be an eradication force but there are other ways ... that we might be able to help," he said.
ISAF officials have already said the force is ready to help by providing training to Afghan security forces, and sharing information and logistics.
Besides funding insurgents, poppy cultivation is corrupting the government and distracting locals from the work under way to rebuild the war-shattered nation, McNeill said.
"People are distracted from the value of the reconstruction because of poppy cultivation and the money inherent within," he said.
In its last year in power in 2001 the extremist Taliban government slashed the production of opium -- the main ingredient of heroin -- to 185 tonnes a year.
It is now estimated at 8,200 tonnes a year, much of it going to Europe, with production the highest in the south where the Taliban's insurgency is the fiercest.
Citation: " Opium funding up to 40 percent of Afghan unrest: US general," Agence France-Presse, 18 October 2007.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071018/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrestnatodrugs