Karzai Pledges to Target Drug Trade

DEA teams will begin working with U.S. troops early next year to find and disrupt drug networks. The agency said it had already helped seize 32,915 pounds of heroin on the shipment route through Central Asia to Europe in the first nine months of this year.

About 350 political and tribal leaders from across Afghanistan have been invited by Karzai's government to attend a two-day conference beginning today on counter-narcotics efforts. The most complex, and potentially most dangerous, stage of Afghanistan's transition lies ahead. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for early April, and U.S. forces plan to step up pressure through the winter on Taliban guerrillas and their allies, who remain a potent force in large parts of eastern and southern Afghanistan.

Karzai's government has been quietly negotiating for months with people it considers moderate Taliban leaders. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad recently offered an amnesty to Taliban fighters who would agree to lay down their weapons. The offer excluded between 50 and 100 leaders suspected of crimes against humanity. A Taliban spokesman rejected the amnesty.

At a news conference with Cheney, the most senior American official to visit Afghanistan since the Taliban's fall from power, Karzai said Afghanistan's achievements had been possible only because of U.S. help.

"Without that help, Afghanistan would be in the hands of terrorists, destroyed, poverty-stricken and without its children going to school or getting an education," Karzai said.