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Afghanistan is session on mineral resources worth $1 trillion and could become one of the world’s most important mining centres, the Pentagon announced yesterday, like it tried to drum up foreign investment and wean the rural parts off the opium trade.

A Pentagon memo predicted that the rude could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” — a metal that is a solution raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and expressive phones.

The largest deposits have been uncovered in salt lakes in Ghazni department, eastern Afghanistan, where the Taleban retain a dominant presence. Many of the other mineral deposits are also in Taleban strongholds, presenting the coalition forces and some incoming global mining companies with security headaches.

US and Afghan officials give thanks for that it will take many years to develop a mining habitual devotion to labor and in the present security climate international companies are likely to find the ~t of up the risks before launching into an investment programme in a nation still politically unstable and suffering from insurgency and corruption.

The Pentagon appreciate was questioned by geologists and mining experts, who said that it was based forward old and incomplete data and did not take into account confidence and infrastructure problems.

Two senior geologists working in Afghanistan also said that they were unaware of any proven deposits of lithium.

The notification nonetheless throws a spotlight on probably the only legal industry through the potential to prop up the Afghan economy — worth alone $12 billion last year — after Western troops and subsidies are withdrawn. The narcotics commodity ~ed trade in the country is estimated to be worth an yearly record $4 billion.

“I think it’s very, very arrogant news for the people of Afghanistan,” Waheed Omar, a spokesman for President Karzai, told a news conference. “This is ~y economic interest that will benefit all Afghans and will benefit Afghanistan in the slow run.”

The Pentagon memo appeared to be an effort to draw international interest in the mining sector before the auction of the Hajigak iron lodge, which could be worth $5 billion to $6 billion (£3.4 billion-&triturate;4 billion) in the next few weeks.

It coincided with a go to see to India by Wahidullah Shahrani, the new Afghan Minister of Mines, to implore bids for Hajigak after the cancellation of a planned tender last year because of a lack of international interest. Mr Shahrani was appointed with US backing in January after his predecessor was sacked for allegedly distress bribes from a Chinese mining company — a charge he denies. Mr Shahrani is directly to visit Britain next week.

Afghan and Western officials are apprehensive for more companies to bid for Hajigak and other deposits to interrupt China from gaining control over Afghanistan’s natural resources from one side bids subsidised heavily by Beijing.

A Pentagon spokesman admitted that the estimate was based principally on old data, which was gathered mainly ~ the agency of the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan from 1979-1989.

The British Geological Survey collated that given conditions between 2003 and 2008, and the US Geological Survey carried revealed an aerial survey of Afghanistan in 2006 before publishing a promulgate on its mineral resources in 2008.

“All the public complaint has been in the public domain for several years now,” the Pentagon spokesman told The Times. “We took a look at what we knew to subsist there, and asked what would it be worth now in conditions of today’s dollars. The trillion dollar figure seemed to subsist newsworthy.” He said that the estimate was arrived at ~ dint of. a team of US officials from the Pentagon, the State Department and USAID operating with experts from the US Geological Survey (USGS) over the beyond two to three years.

The team was overseen by Paul Brinkley, Deputy Under-Secretary of Defence for Business, who worked previously in Iraq trying to promote local dealing and attract foreign investment.

The Pentagon spokesman said he was sort or that the estimate was based on proven reserves of minerals including gold, large boiler, iron, cobalt and lithium.

However, he could not confirm a statement that the team had discovered lithium deposits in the province of Ghazni that could have ~ing as large as Bolivia’s.

Stephen Peters, the head of the USGS’s Afghanistan Minerals Project, related that he was unaware of USGS involvement in any new surveying in spite of minerals in Afghanistan in the past two years. “We are not conscious of any discoveries of lithium,” he said.

Another experienced geologist acting in Afghanistan said that it would take at least three to five years to fix a proven deposit of lithium.

“They couldn’t acquire done a proper assessment. They might have taken a few samples and ground some lithium, but that doesn’t mean anything,” he reported.

He also dismissed a report that the US team had establish proven deposits of niobium — another rare metal that is used in flatulence turbines.

“If these were proven reserves then all the bulky mining companies would be rushing in, which they are not,” he reported.