KABUL - Europe's commissioner for humanitarian aid arrived in war-shattered Kabul on Sunday on the highest-level visit by a Western politician since the purist Islamic Taleban captured the city a year ago. Emma Bonino said at the start of her 24-hour visit that she was shocked at the scale of the destruction in the Afghan capital. "It is one thing to read about it in a dossier, but I didn't expect to see so much destruction. It is shocking to see it at first hand," said Bonino after visiting a minefield being cleared by the Halo Trust, a British charity that receives funding from the European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO). Bonino -- her hair covered with an ECHO scarf to conform to Moslem sensibilities -- visited the minefields and a refuge for street children on Sunday afternoon. A spokesman said she was visiting Kabul to assess the progress of aid programmes funded by the European Union. ECHO has given over $40 million for emergency aid programmes in Afghanistan in 1997. "The reason for the trip is

to assess the needs and to assess if the aid is reaching the civilian population," said spokesman Filippo di Robilant on Sunday. Robilant said Bonino would be meeting officials of the Taleban administration on Monday, but refused to be drawn on what she might say. "This is a purely humanitarian mission," he said. But he said they would be looking at the issue of the treatment of women. "We will also be looking into the gender issue and human rights in general," he said. The Taleban have banned women from the workplace and closed girls' schools in the two-thirds of Afghanistan they control. "Also the drug problem is something that is of concern to us," said Robilant. A recent report by the United Nations Drug Control Programme said Afghanistan was expected to produce more than 2,700 tonnes of opium in 1997, up from 2,300 tonnes in 1996. Opium is the raw material from which heroin is made. The increase means that Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan and Tajikistan -- the so-called Golden Crescent -- has take

n over from southeast Asia as the world's largest opium-producing area. Bonino is expected to visit the opposition-held north of Afghanistan later in the week.