Concerning Afghanistan, and today's fight for stability...There's a popular belief that the
"ROOT" cause of terrorism is “fighting terrorism,” and that "The US has upset the region"...But a closer look at the resurgence and increased formation of Terror groups in and surrounding Afghanistan, reveals the
"REAL ROOT" of this formation...
Yes, we've made tremendous progress in the stop of al Qaeda funding by Islamic charities and family fortune... But now, if the people are to be free from the treachory of the Taliban, and retain their government...
"Terror Funding through Afghanistan's Opium Poppy Trade, must go." 
Click-Image-view interactive map of drug travel UPDATE: This in the News today: U.N. forsees Afghan poppy harvest boom These fields keep the Terror groups in fight...
"It's clear that the insurgents are deriving an income, which they use to pay salaries for their foot soldiers & to buy weapons," he said. "All of this has created quite a cancer of insurgency and illicit drug cultivation that has to be cut through in the years to come."
Lt. Gen. Mohammed Daoud Daoud, the deputy interior minister for counter-narcotics, said 8,900 acres of poppy fields have been destroyed nationwide in the past month.
The target is to destroy almost 14 times that figure -- a total of 123,550 acres -- before the harvest, which runs from April to July, from the south to the colder north. Militia-suppliers of Afghan's multi-billion dollar yearly trade of 90% of the World's Heroin, opium, have threatened a spring offensive against NATO forces...
As hundreds & thousands of US trained, Western and NATO Eradication teams work with Afghan Government to destroy fields in Taliban region...
"There's more at stake than the risk of generating more recruits for the Taliban." 
The Shifting allegiances Cross-border MilitancyAfghans have been known to denounce rivals or enemies as members of the Taliban for political or economic gain...One only has to look at the local power holders who feel marginalized may find themselves allied to the Taliban, at least in the short term. In some areas it's difficult to distinguish between attacks by the Taliban and those by other radical Islamic groups or individuals.
These include Hezb-e Islami, headed by former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, or those loyal to Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former mujahideen leader who also served in the Taliban government. The situation is further complicated by a complex web of shifting allegiances, tribal, ethnic and local rivalries and feuds within Afghan society. (BBC-2006)
An eye-opening article from Bronwen Maddox at Timesonline.UKGood and bad news from the poppy fields
He sites drug-report figures from:
incb.org-In Afghanistan, one million Afghans take heroin or opiates, including 60,000 children under 15.
- In Afghanistan in 2006, the area of poppy-farming rose to a record 165,000 hectares, a jump of 59 per cent from 2005 and more than twice the figure for 2003
- Only 6 of the country’s 34 provinces are free from illicit poppy cultivation. “The drug control situation is deteriorating.”
- A third of the Afghan economy comes from opium, and this is undermining political progress Farming of opium poppies in Pakistan is rising sharply, although it has not yet reached the heights of the early 1990s
- One new trend is the smuggling of heroin from Pakistan into China
- Afghanistan’s neighbors are experiencing soaring rates of drug abuse. Iran has the world’s highest rates of opiate abuse at 2.8 per cent of the adult population; Pakistan has 0.8 per cent In Iran, seizure of Afghan opiates increased to 350 tons in 2005, showing the steep rise in smuggling…
Figures state that in just only "one" province, Helmand; more than 40 percent of the 2006 record yield of 6,725 tons. Source
