The war against terror was being won in Afghanistan, but the country faced a new danger that threatened the entire international community, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld warned on Wednesday.
Speaking at a news conference in the Afghan capital, Rumsfeld said the growing international heroin trade - which originated with opium production in Afghanistan - posed a grave danger to the country's fledgling democracy.
"The danger a large drug trade poses in this country is too serious to ignore," Rumsfeld said. "The inevitable result is to corrupt the government and way of life, and that would be most unfortunate."
Drug production generated 2.3 billion dollars in 2003, up six percent on the previous year, according to UN figures. The 3,600 tonnes of heroin produced in Afghanistan last year accounted for 90 percent of the heroin on Europe's streets.
But Rumsfeld, with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at his side, praised Afghanistan's progress since the Taleban were toppled in 2001 and as it goes to the polls in October to chose its first democratically elected president.
"The entire world has a stake in your success," Rumsfeld said at the heavily guarded presidential palace. "There is no doubt in my mind that you are winning."
Rumsfeld singled out the registration of more than nine million voters, far more than hoped for a few months ago, as a sign of Afghans' desire for democracy despite intimidation by remnants of the Taleban.
Karzai said it had been achieved despite the murder of 12 election workers in the last few months.
Nearly 1,000 people have been killed in the past year, the bloodiest violence since the Taleban's fall, and, despite a three-year hunt by some 18,000 US-led troops, neither bin Laden nor Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar have been captured.