August 23, 2007	Thursday	Sha’aban 9, 1428

LASHKAR GAH: Drug lords in the poppy-filled Sangin valley are emerging as a crucial threat to the British campaign in southern Afghanistan, as soldiers seek to consolidate their hold on Helmand province in anticipation of an expected Taliban spring offensive.

The valley, a steep-sided expanse of deep green on either side of the Helmand river, is a vital thoroughfare for electricity supplies to Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. But to assure the supply, British troops serving in the Nato force, ISAF, will need to pacify the Sangin valley.

“Pretty much all the green you see there is poppy,” a British official said during a flight over Helmand. The valley was a death trap for British paratroopers last year and has been largely avoided so far by the marines who succeeded them. “It’s a no-go area,” the official said.

A British-trained Afghan counter-narcotics unit, Commando 333, recently carried out a raid on Sangin, smashing heroin laboratories there. But dislodging the warlords who control the business would require a sustained effort.

“If ISAF goes in in force in Sangin, the drug lords would go over the hill, and the drug labs with them. It would separate the drug lords from farmers,” an official said. Fourteen hundred British troops are on the way to southern Afghanistan, but will not arrive before the summer, and the most decisive battles could be over by then. Any offensive would have to be followed up quickly with offers of jobs and alternative crops for the local people.

Margaret Beckett, the UK foreign secretary, visited the British outpost at Lashkar Gah on Tuesday (MAR1) to underline the UK’s resolve, just days after the announcement of the new troop deployment. “The message it gives is an important one,” she said. “It will give our military some more flexibility and send an important political signal to the government of Afghanistan.”

British officers are planning to use the same counter-insurgency approach in the Sangin valley that they have used elsewhere in Helmand, accompanying a show of force with a hearts-and-minds campaign focused on local leaders. “We’re going to try to persuade the elders in the Sangin valley that there will be a lot of jobs available [if they forsake drugs],” one officer in Lashkar Gah said.

The strategy of brokering deals with local leaders has been criticised as too soft by some US officials, particularly since Feb 2, when the Taliban seized control of the town of Musa Qala, where British troops had agreed a truce with the elders to exclude both Nato and Taliban forces. Mrs Beckett however defended the strategy. “I think as time goes on, it’s important to try to give the time and space for Afghan solutions, not assume we know it all,” she said.

In the past four weeks, British troops have killed two of the four main Taliban leaders occupying Musa Qala, and officials say the other two are in talks with local elders over the town’s future.

A UN official with extensive experience in the south welcomed the switch in British tactics from a greater reliance on air strikes last year, which caused civilian deaths, to a focus on commando attacks against the Taliban leadership. “These well-targeted intelligence-based operations have been successful,” he said. “The Helmand police are telling us the Taliban have been demoralised by them. They are not in a strong mood. It’s a good sign.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service