The Taliban movement may be using Afghanistan’s drug trade to fund its insurgency, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said during a visit to Tajikistan.

Funds from selling narcotics could potentially fund the Taliban and other terrorist activities, Mr. Rumsfeld said, according to a report by the Armed Forces Press Service. Mr. Rumsfeld arrived yesterday in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to hold talks with President Karzai, Agence France-Presse reported.

The amount of drugs seized on the Tajik-Afghan border in the first three months of this year increased by 27%, Tajikistan’s foreign minister, Talbak Nazarov, said on Sunday, according to the Armed Forces Press Service. Afghanistan remains the world’s biggest producer of opium poppies.

Poppy planting in Afghanistan may increase this year, the American government said in a report issued in March. Cultivation dropped 48% in 2005 compared with the year earlier, the United Nations has said. Opium is the base ingredient for heroin.

American-led coalition forces and Afghan soldiers killed at least 30 suspected Taliban in an air raid early yesterday in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, AFP reported, citing the U.S. military command. The Taliban increased attacks in recent months after coalition and Afghan forces began operations in southern and eastern provinces. The Taliban was ousted from power in Afghanistan in 2001.

Britain announced on Sunday that it will deploy an additional 945 soldiers in southern Afghanistan to counter Taliban attacks. Britain has about 3,300 soldiers in the region as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, which is taking over control of the area.

America is providing training and equipment to security forces on Tajikistan’s 750-mile border with Afghanistan, Mr. Rumsfeld said Sunday. Tajikistan allows U.S. military aircraft involved in operations in Afghanistan to use its airspace and to refuel.

“Our goal for our country is to have as many countries cooperating in the global war on terror and providing as many types of cooperation as they feel comfortable providing,” Mr. Rumsfeld said.

Tajikistan’s leaders recognize the importance of the narcotics problem and have a desire to work on fixing it, Mr. Rumsfeld said after meeting President Rakhmonov in the capital, Dushanbe. Tajik border security forces last year seized 4,613 kilograms of drugs, Mr. Nazarov said. Tajikistan, a landlocked nation of 7.3 million people in Central Asia that also borders China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, is committed to helping America establish peace and security in Afghanistan, Mr. Nazarov said.