NATO general says drugs Afghanistan's biggest threat

BERLIN, May 20 (Reuters) Afghanistan is on the brink of becoming a narco-state with drug cartels now posing a greater threat to the country's future than Taliban insurgents, NATO's top military commander in Europe today said.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material for heroin. The narcotics trade accounts for about a third of its economy.

In an interview with the International Herald Tribune, General James Jones said: ''Afghanistan is teetering on becoming a narco-state.

''It is not the resurgence of the Taliban but the linkage of the economy to drug production, crime, corruption and black market activities which poses the greatest danger for Afghanistan,'' he added.

Jones was appointed commander of NATO and the U.S. forces in Europe in 2003.

Afghanistan's opium output last year was about 4,500 tonnes and about 90 percent of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan. Experts have said the huge trade is feeding an escalating insurgency against foreign troops and Afghanistan's Western-backed government.

NATO is planning expanded operations in Afghanistan in the coming months that will take foreign troop numbers there to the highest level since the Taliban's overthrow in 2001.

Jones acknowledged a surge in Taliban attacks in recent weeks but said the country was ''not backsliding into chaos''.

He said insurgents were testing NATO in areas where drug cartels, organised crime groups, tribes, and Taliban and al Qaeda remnants felt threatened by NATO's expansion plans.

''They want to see if NATO is up to the test. The Taliban and al Qaeda are not stupid people. They want to see what they are up against. We are going into places where the scope for crime and narcotics will be dislodged,'' said the former U.S. Marine commander.

Jones said NATO had begun cooperating with Iran to try to prevent armed drug convoys from crossing into that country en route to Russia and Europe.

''Iran now sees what we are doing on the Afghan side of the border is beneficial,'' he said.

REUTERS SY HT1328