Taliban Resurgence Produces Record Opium Harvest in Afghanistan
Opium production in Afghanistan is at the highest level ever recorded and shows an increase of 50 percent from last year. The increase in opium cultivation is a result of the resurgence of Taliban rebels. The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said in a statement: ?The southern part of Afghanistan was displaying the ominous hallmarks of incipient collapse, with large-scale drug cultivation and trafficking, insurgency and terrorism, crime and corruption.?Opium production in Afghanistan is at the highest level ever recorded and shows an increase of 50 percent from last year. The increase in opium cultivation is a result of the resurgence of Taliban rebels. The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said in a statement: ?The southern part of Afghanistan was displaying the ominous hallmarks of incipient collapse, with large-scale drug cultivation and trafficking, insurgency and terrorism, crime and corruption.?
TRUTHDIG’S JOURNALISM REMAINS CLEARNYT: September 3, 2006 Opium Harvest at Record Level in Afghanistan By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 2 ? Afghanistan?s opium harvest this year has reached the highest levels ever recorded, showing an increase of almost 50 percent from last year, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said Saturday in Kabul.
He described the figures as ?alarming? and ?very bad news? for the Afghan government and international donors who have poured millions of dollars into programs to reduce the poppy crop since 2001.
He said the increase in cultivation was fueled by the resurgence of Taliban rebels in the south, the country?s prime opium growing region. As the insurgents have stepped up their attacks, they have also encouraged and profited from the drug trade, promising protection to growers if they worked to expand their opium operations.
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A U.S. drone strike and air assaults by Pakistani military forces killed 38 people this weekend in tribal areas near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, official sources reported Sunday.
The official American reaction to the coordinated attacks in Kabul, the Afghan capital, as well as at Jalalabad airbase, and in Paktika and Logar Provinces, reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of guerrilla warfare.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has branded the Taliban’s 18-hour siege of Kabul and places across eastern Afghanistan on Sunday an intelligence failure and called for an investigation into NATO security operations.
Pointing to "the shaky, erratic and vague standpoint of the Americans" as one key reason for their decision, Taliban leaders in Afghanistan put the kibosh on plans to meet with U.S. envoys, releasing a statement on Thursday explaining the change of plans.
Claims made by NATO that Pakistan is in cahoots with the Afghan Taliban are tantamount to "old wine in an even older bottle," according to Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. However, this particular batch of wine represents thousands of mandatory conversations (read: interrogations) versus Khar's official denial.
In the deadliest day for American troops since the war in Afghanistan began almost 10 years ago, 30 Americans and seven Afghan commandos died Saturday when the Chinook helicopter they were in was shot down by the Taliban.
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