Coalition Force Finds Opium Cache

From an International Security Assistance Force Joint Command News Release

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 22, 2012 – A coalition security force found 1,300 pounds of opium in the Nad-e Ali district of Afghanistan’s Helmand province today, military officials reported.

The security force seized a small quantity of the opium for examination and destroyed the rest, officials said.

In Afghanistan operations yesterday:

-- In the Maiwand district of Kandahar province, an Afghan-led and coalition-supported force arrested an insurgent leader who directed insurgent fighters and planted roadside bombs. The security force detained several other suspected insurgents and found bomb-making materials in the operation.

-- An Afghan-led and coalition-supported force killed an insurgent leader who fired on them in the Deh Rawood district of Uruzgan province. The insurgent leader was an IED facilitator responsible for numerous attacks on Afghan and coalition forces in the area. During the operation the insurgent leader attempted to fire on the combined force. The security force detained several suspected insurgents.

General Says Insurgency Connected to Afghan Opium Industry

By Carmen L. Gleason
American Forces Press Service

June 5, 2007 – The problems plaguing the Afghan government cannot be taken on without taking on the problem of poppy production, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan told Pentagon reporters in a teleconference today. Although he's not suggesting changing the charter of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Dan K. McNeill said coalition forces can likely work within the eight pillars of the Afghan National Strategy for Counternarcotics to help fight against the opium cultivation in the country.

"Poppy is a defining characteristic for this country at present," McNeill said. "And it's a negative definition any way you look at it."

In years past, Afghans have had to turn to growing opium poppy largely due infrastructure problems such as poor roads and destroyed irrigation systems. Since poppies need moisture once every five days, the plant was heavily relied upon to provide an income for farmers in the drought-stricken country.

With increased moisture from the snow melt in the Hindu Kush Mountains this year and the best spring rain the country has received in more than 50 year, the general said prime conditions have been set for optimum narcotic cultivation.

"I don't think there's any doubt that there is some connection between the insurgency and poppy," McNeill said. He said that while monitoring of convoys for insurgents and munitions, coalition troops have frequently come across narcotics convoys.

"It occurs to me that when I put all this together, that is some places in Afghanistan, probably especially in the south, they're almost inextricable - what the insurgents are doing and what the 'narco' dealers are doing," he said.

The general said that he didn't have any numerical evidence to assign to the relationship, but he is convinced of the relationship. And the NATO force, he said, isn't designed to challenge the poppy trade militarily.

"(Coalition troops) are not an eradication force," he said. "We're not trained, we're not equipped, we don't have the requisite number of helicopters, and we're not manned to do it."

However, McNeill said that NATO forces will be able to work within the country's counternarcotics pillars to operate against the problem.

"I don't believe that we can deal with the insurgency in a complete fashion without taking on the issue of poppy," McNeill said.

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Opium Funds Taliban Operations, Hurts Afghan Economy, Fallon Says

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

April 19, 2007 – The illicit, but lucrative, opium trade is helping to finance Taliban operations while placing a stranglehold on Afghanistan's economy, the commander of U.S. Central Command testified during a Congressional hearing yesterday. In fact, some military analysts credit the recent relative lull in Taliban activity to their participation in the annual opium harvest that's under way now in Afghanistan, Navy Adm. William J. Fallon told House Armed Services Committee members.

"This is opium harvest season, I'm told, and that's probably one of the reasons why the Taliban have been relatively quiet in the last couple of weeks because (intelligence analysts) tell me they're busy out in the fields harvesting their crops," Fallon told committee members.

Opium is a powerful illegal narcotic that's derived from poppy plants cultivated by many Afghan farmers as a cash crop. Heroin is an opium derivative and most of Afghanistan's opium is sold on the European drug market.

Fallon said it is unfortunate that some Afghans are dependent on opium-poppy farming for their livelihoods.

"It's painful to watch this, because the impact of this criminal activity runs throughout the country and I suspect it's one of the reasons life is challenging in Afghanistan, because it appears that at every level, from growers to farmers on up to higher levels, there's some degree of gain from this illicit trade," Fallon said.

As desirable as it would be to remove opium as Afghanistan's mainline cash crop, Fallon pointed out that a viable alternative agricultural crop would have to be identified to replace it.

"I think we have to come up with a realistic alternative," Fallon told committee members. Some have proposed that orchard crops could one day replace opium growing in Afghanistan, he noted.

"What I don't know how viable this is as a realistic, major 'muscle mover' in the (Afghan) economy," Fallon said, noting that he's been told it would be very challenging to get the orchard produce to market, given the rudimentary and poor state of Afghanistan's roads.

In fact, that's why ongoing work to establish a ring of paved roads that connect Afghanistan's major municipalities is such an important project, the admiral said.

"Everybody that I've talked to, from President (Hamid) Karzai on down, tells me (the new road network) is absolutely essential to the economic future" of Afghanistan, Fallon said.

Fallon took over as CENTCOM's chief March 16. Since then, he has traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries that come under his command's purview.

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