Helmand province, where 4,000 U.S. Marines launched a major anti-Taliban offensive Thursday, is the world's largest cultivator of opium poppies, the crop used to make heroin.

Top supplier: Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world's poppy crop last year; Helmand alone was responsible for more than half of the opium production in the country, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

The Taliban connection: U.N. officials allege that hundreds of millions of dollars from the multibillion-dollar trade go to finance the Taliban-led insurgency – or to line the pockets of corrupt government officials and warlords.

Policy switch: Last week, the top U.S. envoy in the region, Richard Holbrooke, said poppy eradication – a cornerstone of anti-drug efforts in the country – was not working and was only driving Afghan farmers into the hands of the Taliban. The new approach will try to wean the farmers of the lucrative cash crop by giving them help to grow other produce, such as wheat, corn and pomegranates.

The Associated Press

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