AFGHAN REBELS DOMINATE OPIUM GROWING

VIENNA, Austria -- Most opium produced in Afghanistan is now in areas
controlled by the northern alliance, the rebel group whose battle against
the ruling Taliban is encouraged by the United States and its Western
allies, U.N. officials said Friday.

The rebels, who control a tiny sliver of northern Afghanistan, dominate
opium harvests this year because the Taliban appear to be enforcing their
ban on growing the poppy. Opium is the raw material in heroin and other drugs.

Growers in northern alliance areas harvested about 150 tons of the opium
poppy this year, said Mohammad Amirkhizi, senior policy adviser at the U.N.
Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, based in Vienna.

That's about the same as northern alliance harvests in the past few years,
and pales compared to the 3,300 tons harvested last year, before the
Taliban banned production in the 90 percent of Afghanistan they controlled.

Only about 50 tons were harvested this year in regions controlled by the
Taliban, said Amirkhizi, basing his figures on ground surveys conducted by
U.N. workers.

However, officials believe that drug trading continues in
Taliban-controlled areas from a stockpile estimated at 2,900 tons. The
trading is flooding the world market and driving down opium prices.

Production of opium has been an important source of revenue for the
Taliban, which has earned tens of millions of dollars by taxing poppy
farmers and traffickers.

The Taliban have refused U.S. demands to surrender Osama bin Laden, the
accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.