Opium cultivation in rebel-controlled areas in southern Afghanistan is expected to grow this year, a UN report said today.
The report said that Afghanistan, in turmoil since a US-led military operation toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, is also steadily increasing its production of cannabis.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime report claimed that the increase in drugs trade was boosting the funds of the Taliban insurgency. Afghanistan supplies some 90 per cent of the world's illicit opium, the main ingredient in heroin, and the Taliban rebels fighting the US-led forces receive up to €75 million from the drug trade, the UN estimates.
"Indeed, it is the insurgents, the Taliban, that are deriving an enormous funding for their war by imposing... a 10 per cent tax on production," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN agency.
Afghanistan cultivated a record 477,000 acres of opium in 2007, a 14 per cent increase on the previous year. Total production, spurred by unusually high rainfall, increased even further, by 34 per cent.
The one bright spot in the report, which was released on the sidelines of an international meeting on Afghanistan in Tokyo, was that area under cultivation outside of the rebel strongholds was expected to fall. That meant overall cultivation area would stay even or fall slightly in 2008, the report said, though wet weather could boost the productivity of each poppy plant.
Mr Costa and General Khodaidad, Afghanistan's acting counter-narcotics minister, attributed the stall in overall growth of cultivation to eradication efforts and programmes aimed at convincing farmers to switch to legal crops.
The report showed mixed results in the battle against opium in 2007. Poppy cultivation increased in eight provinces and decreased in 26, including 13 that became poppy-free.
Nearly a third of villages said they had received cash advances from drug traffickers to grow poppy. All respondents in the southern region and 72 per cent in the west said they paid taxes to anti-government entities, including mullahs, local commanders and the Taliban, the report said.
None of Afghanistan's legal crops - such as maize, rice or cotton - can match the income from opium poppies, estimated at €1,500 per acre, the report said.
In addition to opium, the survey found an increase in cannabis cultivation, with 18 per cent of villages planning to grow it in 2008, compared with 13 per cent last year, when some 172,970 acres of cannabis crops were cultivated.
PA