Some killers are ivory traders, seeking a quick profit selling elephant tusks, but others are poor villagers, searching for meat to add to the cooking pot.
Under the new programme, wardens in Tsavo, who have long complained they lack the staff and resources adequately to patrol the park or remove all the traps set by villagers, will get trucks, walkie-talkies and better roads to keep poachers at bay. Is it a coincidence or is it because they feel that they are less threatened by ISAF?”A Nato spokesman said: “We are aware of the problem and reducing the cultivation of poppy will be an effort of the international community.”. The Kenya Wildlife Service is launching a $1.25m (£700,000) scheme to bolster its wardens’ fight against poachers in the savannah land of Tsavo, where lions, elephants, rhino and deer are still falling to hunters. Kenya’s largest national park, where man-eating lions are long gone but human killers still prowl, is to be provided with top-class equipment to help curb poaching, for decades a constant threat to the animals.

The picture is similar in the west with a 348 per cent rise in Farah where ISAF is also present. The US-led coalition, which entered the country after the September 11 attacks of 2001, is on a mission to eradicate the remnants of the Taliban in Operation Enduring Freedom. Since December 2003, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has been increasing its presence by establishing so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in the north and west.The UN document shows a 334 per cent increase in production in the region of Balkh, despite the presence of a PRT at Mazar-e-Sharif. Meanwhile officials are alarmed at the 162 per cent rise in Kandahar.Speaking in Brussels after meetings with EU and Nato officials, Mr Costa said: “It looks like the country is dedicating some of its best agricultural land to the cultivation of opium. The report is an embarrassment to Washington and London as they claim stability and progress in Afghanistan.”The strongest increases were in the north and west where Nato is operating,” said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN office on drugs and crime. “This needs to be brought to the attention of Nato.”Two western military operations are present in Afghanistan. Following the death of 85 Muslim protesters in army custody, political opponents have warned Mr Thaksin not to be heavyhanded.Under his new decree, federal enforcers cannot be prosecuted for rights violations in the south and residents are suspicious of such impunity..

Massive increases in drug production have been recorded in regions of Afghanistan where Nato is operating, just as the country counts votes from its first parliamentary elections. A report from the UN office on drugs and crime recorded an overall decline in the area under opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan from about 131,000 hectares in 2004 to 104,000 hectares in 2005.
But the document says that the figures mask massive regional differences, with opium production increasing 106 per cent in the north of the country, 98 per cent in the west and 30 per cent in the south. A century ago much of the area was under the rule of a sultan. The Prime Minister blamed critics of his tough policy for the deaths, saying security forces overly concerned about political correctness were reluctant to take decisive action that might have saved the two marines. Rumours are rife in a region that has been plagued by beheadings, drive-by shootings, and classroom bombs since January 2004. Najmudin Uma, an Islamic scholar who took part in negotiations, told a local television news team that the murders happened after people “whispered that troops would stage an attack through the rubber plantation”. Thailand’s Crown Princess Sirindhorn attended the marines’ funeral service yesterday in Narathiwat, in a rare appearance that underlined the concern of the royal family Hundreds of military families paid their respects.

Thailand is overwhelmingly Buddhist, with the four per cent of Muslims concentrated in the southern three border provinces, where they are 80 per cent of the population. Witnesses said that while elders left to pray in the mosque next door, three hooded militants rushed in to stab the marines, then bludgeoned them with a sledgehammer and iron staves. By the time the reporters arrived, negotiations no longer were possible. Later, Mr Romoeli complained that milling crowds of outsiders may have provoked the killings. “More than half of them were not from this village,” he said.

The village headman, Romoeli Tingi, said relatives of the tea shop shooting victims did not believe the marines had fired the shots, and had planned to let them go. After the marines were tied up, they were given water and food, and villagers demanded Malaysian reporters who could understand their dialect be summoned. “It was a coincidence that the two marines came when the shooting happened,” Thammarak Issrangkura Na Ayutthaya, the Defence Minister, said Some reports said their car had stalled in the crowd. Before dying, he identified his assailants as government agents in plain clothes. Hundreds of women with small children blockaded the road into Tanyonglimo village in Narwathiwat province, and prevented the rescue of the marines during a 19-hour stand-off that ended on Wednesday afternoon. Officials insisted that the armed marines, although out of uniform, were pursuing intelligence leads and were not part of any death squad. Four other customers were wounded in this attack, which reminded villagers of an attack in June in which the cleric of the local mosque was hit.