After Afghanistan, Opium Invades Iraq

Red-colored opium poppies found a fertile ground at the southern city of Diwaniyah and surrounding cities, Iraqi sources familiar with the area told the British daily.

Noting that the area is too dangerous for foreign journalists to access, the paper insisted the start of opium cultivation has been confirmed by multiple sources.

The Iraqi sources said the farmers are financed by powerful gangs who are "well-equipped with good vehicles and weapons and are well-organized."

The British daily said that though the cultivation of opium poppies is still in its early stages there is little the government can amid the uncontrolled chaos miring the little-noticed south.

Drug smugglers have for long used Iraq as a transit point for heroin, largely produced from Afghanistan.

However, opium poppies, the raw ingredient of heroin, have hitherto not been grown in the oil-rich country.

The shift of southern areas, long-famous with rice fields, to the poppy cultivation is therefore raising fears that Iraq could become a new major heroin supplier.

Afghan Model

The Independentsaid the trend of opium cultivation in Iraq follow a similar pattern not far away.

"As in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the conditions of primal anarchy are ideal for criminal gangs and drug smugglers and producers," it said.

The UN said in a February report that US-British efforts have failed to eradicate the mushrooming poppy cultivation in Afghanistan as the crop is set to hit new records in 2007.

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