Bombs for Bongs. Iraq and Afghanistan exchange ideas.

For some time, it has been obvious that tactics learned in Iraq have been spreading to Afghanistan as IEDs are becoming a common problem for Nato troops in Afghanistan. Roadside bombs kill troops both in Iraq and Afghanistan at an alarming rate. It was a technique developed in Iraq and transferred to Afghanistan.

Trade of goods and ideas is always a two way street and this time it is in the other direction from Afghanistan to Iraq. Opium production is starting in Iraq:

Opium: Iraq's deadly new export
Amid the anarchy, farmers begin to grow opium poppies, raising fears that the country could become a major heroin supplier

By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 23 May 2007
The Independent

Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan.

Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.

The shift to opium cultivation is still in its early stages but there is little the Iraqi government can do about it because rival Shia militias and their surrogates in the security forces control Diwaniya and its neighbourhood. There have been bloody clashes between militiamen, police, Iraqi army and US forces in the city over the past two months.

The shift to opium production is taking place in the well-irrigated land west and south of Diwaniya around the towns of Ash Shamiyah, al Ghammas and Ash Shinafiyah. The farmers are said to be having problems in growing the poppies because of the intense heat and high humidity. It is too dangerous for foreign journalists to visit Diwaniya but the start of opium poppy cultivation is attested by two students from there and a source in Basra familiar with the Iraqi drugs trade.

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