UK's Afghan Strategy Hit.

Britain's faltering counter-narcotics strategy in Afghanistan came under renewed pressure on Sept. 2 after a senior member of President Hamid Karzai's government called for the aerial spraying of poppy fields. US officials have been pushing to introduce aerial spraying for some time but the move has been strongly resisted by Britain on the grounds it is counter-productive and against the wishes of the Afghan government. However, this case was partly undermined after Afghan VP Ahmed Zia Massoud broke ranks with Karzai to call for a more "forceful approach" to tackle poppies "that have spread like cancer", saying: "We must switch from ground based eradication to aerial spraying".

The split within Karzai's government mirrors the divide between the US and the UK over the best way to tackle poppy production, a business interwoven with the Taliban insurgency. Several UK ministers have visited Afghanistan recently to underscore the importance of what they consider to be a generational struggle.

Yet, in spite of a big increase in NATO troops and resources, poppy production has soared. A UN report says production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90% of the world's opium, jumped 34% in 2006. Drug production is now "closely linked to the insurgency", the report concludes, with the Taliban controlling "vast swathes of land".

VP Massoud said moving to aerial spraying was safer and less open to corruption. Senior UK Foreign Office officials have dismissed such calls, saying it is "difficult to envisage circumstances where the benefits of aerial eradication outweigh the disadvantages". Spraying is hard to target and prompts farmers to plant more poppies to cover debts. It risks fuelling popular myths about foreign forces using chemicals. Britain advocates more arrests of traffickers and extra NATO support to Afghan eradication teams. UK International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander on Sept. 2 said Karzai remained opposed to aerial spraying. Alexander, who recently met Karzai in Kabul, added: "Where you have law, governance and security it is possible to tackle poppy production. Where you don't, as in Helmand at the moment, you see an increase".

Over the past seven weeks, the Taliban have driven government forces out of roughly half of a strategic area in southern Afghanistan which US and NATO officials declared a success story last autumn in their campaign to clear out insurgents and make way for development. A year after Canadian and US forces drove hundreds of Taliban fighters from the area, the Panjwai and Zhare districts south-west of Kandahar, the Taliban are back and have adopted new tactics. Carrying out guerrilla attacks after NATO troops partly withdrew in July, they overran isolated police posts and are now operating in areas where they can mount attacks on Kandahar, the largest city in the south.

The setback is part of a bloody stalemate which has occurred between NATO troops and Taliban fighters across southern Afghanistan this summer. NATO and Afghan army soldiers can push the Taliban out of rural areas, but the Afghan police are too weak to hold the territory after they withdraw. At the same time, the Taliban are unable to take large towns and have generally mounted fewer suicide bomb attacks in southern cities than last summer. Panjwai and Zhare highlight the changing nature of the fight in the south.

The operation there in September 2006 was the largest battle in the country since 2002. But now the Taliban are avoiding set battles with NATO and instead are attacking the police and stepping up their use of Iran-supplied improvised explosive devices (IEDs), as in the case of Iran-backed rebels in Iraq. According to a UN tally, insurgents have set off 516 IEDs in 2007. Another 402 IEDs have been found before detonation. Reported security incidents, a broad category which includes bombings, firefights and intimidation, are up from 500 a month in 2006 to 600 a month this year, up 20%. About 2,500-3,000 people have died in insurgency-related violence so far this year, a quarter of them civilians, up 20% over 2006. NATO and US deaths are up 20% in 2007 to 161, says Iraq Casualty Count, a Website tracking deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Taliban wage intimidation campaigns against the people. One thing the Taliban do when they enter an area is to hang several local farmers, declaring them spies.

The Afghan police continue to be devastated by Taliban bombings and guerrilla strikes, with 379 killed so far this year, compared to 257 for all of 2006. Yet the Taliban have been unable to take large towns and have carried out 102 suicide bombings, roughly the same number as in 2006. A predicted Taliban spring offensive never materialised, and Western officials say raids by NATO and US Special Operations forces have killed dozens of senior and mid-level Taliban commanders this year.

Maj Gen Bernard Champoux of the US Army, deputy commander for security for the NATO-led ISAF, said the Taliban's leadership was in "disarray" and had not been able to launch the attacks it had hoped this year and would be even weaker in 2008. He said: "This has been a shaping year. I think next year will be a decisive year".