**War on terror lets poppies return to Pakistan **
ISLAMABAD (March 02 2005): Opium poppy production has resurfaced in Pakistan because security forces have been busy tackling militants linked to the al Qaeda network along the Afghan border, a key official said on Tuesday. Major US ally Pakistan was declared a poppy-free country in 2000, but farmers began cultivating the heroin-producing flowers again in 2002, said Major General Nadeem Ahmed, chief of the army-led Anti-Narcotics Force.
Pakistan needed more international help if it was to win both the war on terror and the war on drugs, Ahmed told reporters at the launch of a report by the United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board.
“After a break of two years there has been some resurgence of poppy crop in Pakistan,” he said.
Poppies had sprung up over some 6,700 hectares in Pakistan at that time, and while 78 percent had been eradicated another 22 percent remained intact, the official said.
Ongoing counter-terrorist operations in NWFP, as well as moves to tackle a tribal revolt in Balochistan province, had diverted key forces, he added.
“These two issues have hampered our efforts going for full eradication,” the anti-drugs chief said.
This year the Frontier Corps has also been deployed to guard Pakistan’s largest gas field and other installations in restive Balochistan after attacks by tribesmen demanding economic benefits from the province’s natural resources.
“If the Frontier Corps is available in both these provinces and they are not committed to internal security tasks then hopefully we will be able to keep it (drugs) well under control,” Ahmed said.
However, he warned that international efforts led by the United States to stamp out drugs in neighbouring Afghanistan - now the world’s biggest producer of opium - could backfire on Pakistan.
“Pakistan is likely to see an upsurge in poppy cultivation, reverse flow of labs from Afghanistan into Pakistan and shifting of storage sites,” Ahmed said.
Its frontline position meant Pakistan needed more financial and material support from the international community, he added.
“We are fighting our war as well as the international war on narcotics. We need air, ground mobility and electronic intelligence where international community need to come forward and help Pakistan,” he said.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005
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