Afghan Counternarcotics Minister Resigns

Kabul, 8 July 2007 (AP) --- Afghanistan's counternarcotics minister has resigned only weeks after Afghan laborers finished cultivating an opium poppy crop that could exceed last year's record haul.

Habibullah Qaderi's resignation, confirmed by a deputy minister Sunday, came as U.S. and Afghan officials debate privately whether to use herbicides to reduce the drug problem.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai rejected that approach for the 2007 growing season, partly because some Afghans fear the chemicals could affect livestock, legitimate crops and drinking water, fears the U.S. says are unfounded.

Much of the profit from the country's $3.1 billion drug trade is believed to fund Taliban fighters waging a violent campaign against the government. Officials said Sunday recent clashes between police and insurgents left 11 suspected militants dead in the south, while Taliban fighters ambushed police in Kandahar province, wounding 15 officers.

Qaderi submitted his resignation to the president about five days ago, said Gen. Khodaidad, the deputy minister. The resignation was voluntary and driven in part by health problems, he said, though Qaderi has taken a new position in Canada as Afghanistan's consulate general.

Karzai has not named a replacement.

Qaderi headed the ministry since December 2004 and survived several Cabinet shuffles, but Afghanistan's poppy crop has ballooned under his watch and the country's production last year accounted for more than 90 percent of the world's heroin supply. Western and U.N. officials have said this year's harvest could equal or exceed last year's record crop.

Khodaidad, who like many Afghans goes by one name, said Qaderi did a "wonderful job" in the north, where cultivation is expected to drop, but said "we have some problems" in the south, where violence has spiked this year.

The U.S. has proposed spraying the crops with herbicide as it does with coca plants in Colombia, where the current U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, William Wood, previously served.

Britain, whose troops are in charge of Helmand province, the world's largest poppy growing region, has said it would support limited spraying.

Gen. Dan McNeill, the top general in charge of NATO-led troops here, has said he expects Western soldiers to step up efforts to combat the drug trade, though they would not be involved in manual eradication of poppy fields that Afghan officials now carry out with the help of Western advisers.

Taliban fighters are believed to tax and protect poppy farmers and drug runners.

A battle in southern Helmand province left 10 Taliban dead Saturday after ground fighting and airstrikes, said Mohammad Hussein, the provincial police chief. He said there were no casualties among NATO or Afghan forces.

Also in Helmand, an Afghan in charge of government construction projects and his son were gunned down by men on motorbikes, Hussein said.

In Kandahar province, Taliban fighters ambushed Afghan police on a patrol, and 15 police were wounded, the Interior Ministry said.

In neighboring Zabul province, militants attacked a police patrol vehicle in the district of Arghandab, and the ensuing 20-minute clash left one Taliban dead and two wounded, said district chief Fazel Bari. A policeman was also wounded, he said.

Insurgents took Mullah Ahmed Akhunzada, the director of a provincial clerics council, from his home and killed him Saturday night in Tirin Kot, said Uruzgan provincial police chief Gen. Qasim Khan.

Mullah Obaidullah, the Taliban's regional commander from Uruzgan, claimed responsibility for the incident in a call to The Associated Press and said Akhunzada was killed because he supported the Afghan government.

More than 3,100 people, mostly militants, have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on numbers from Western and Afghan officials.

Source: ABC News http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3356621