Russia Says Nato is Ignoring Afghan Opium Trade

Nato is turning a blind eye to the flourishing opium trade in Afghanistan to ensure the support of warlords in the struggle to maintain security in the country, Russia's defence minister has claimed.

Sergei Ivanov said Afghanistan was now producing nine times the quantity of drugs it did under the Taliban.

"It is understandable that by allowing drug peddling in Afghanistan, the [Nato] alliance ensures loyalty of warlords on the ground and of some Afghan leaders," he said.

"Nevertheless, the drug flow from Afghanistan is posing a serious threat to the national security of all of the central Asian CIS [confederation of independent states] and Russia. It results from the absence of a truly international approach toward stabilisation in Afghanistan."

Mr Ivanov was speaking at an international security conference in Munich where Nato countries, including Britain, debated whether to increase their military presence in Afghanistan.

His comments came as at least 20 people were reported killed and 40 wounded in north-eastern Afghanistan in clashes over the payment of taxes on the opium poppy crop.

The Munich meeting coincided with an international conference in Kabul, called to discuss ways to combat the trade.

The Afghan poppy crop is estimated to be the raw material for 90% of the heroin in Britain, but little ends up in the US.

The UN estimates that Afghan opium production last year amounted to a record 3,600 tonnes - an increase of 6% on the previous year - and said that surveys of farmers suggested that a further increase was likely this year.

UN officials have voiced concern because the crop is spreading to parts of the country where it has not been grown before.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has estimated that the output could be worth $2.3bn (£1.25bn). The country's total official exports to its neighbour Pakistan are worth about one-sixtieth of that.

Whitehall officials privately accuse the US of giving a low priority to the issue, as it needs the warlords to help combat Taliban and al-Qaida remnants and other Islamist fighters.

Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, told the Munich conference that Britain had offered to lead an expanded Nato peacekeeping mission in northern Afghanistan. "We are prepared to take command of the northern region group," he said.

Officials said Britain would lead a network of Nato military teams based in five or six cities across a swath of northern territory. The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that five such teams of 80 to 300 soldiers could be in place by June, when national elections are due.

However, the US has made it clear that the mandate for Nato's peacekeepers would be separate from that of US troops in search of al-Qaida fighters and Osama bin Laden.

Official sources told Reuters yesterday that the latest clashes involving the opium trade involved the forces of two government commanders in the Argo district.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said fighting had not stopped until Sunday morning in a dispute between the two commanders about who would receive a tax on the district's poppy crop.

About 100 members of the security forces have been sent from Faizabad, the provincial capital of Badakhshan, to stop the fighting, authorities said, adding that the locals wanted the central government to step in because they did not trust provincial officials.