Drug barons fuelling Afghan insurgency- US envoy

KABUL, June 12 (Reuters) Drug barons and Islamist insurgents are fuelling insurgency in Afghanistan to undermine anti-narcotics campaign of President Hamid Karzai's government, the US envoy to Kabul today said.

Speaking at a news conference, the US ambassador Ronald E Neumann said the Afghan government had launched a ''strong policy'' to destroy opium fields in the country's south, where rugged mountains make it perfect for production of illegal drug.

''There were efforts by drug dealers and terrorists together to prevent that (the US policy),'' he said.

''They did not prevent it and I think now they are trying to use the violence to guard their wealth,'' he added.

Neumann's comments came as Afghanistan is undergoing its worst period of violence since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

More than 900 people have been killed in Afghan violence this year, about 400 of them in May, according to US and government figures.

Afghanistan is the world's main producer of opium and its refined form, heroin.

The country's opium output last year was about 4,500 tonnes and about 90 percent of the world's heroin comes from the war-ravaged country.

REUTERS SY BD2155