IN TARGETING TERRORISTS' DRUG MONEY, U.S. PUTS ITSELF IN AN AWKWARD SITUATION

Analysts Say Taliban's Foes -- Bush's Likely Allies -- Are Using Opium and
Other Drugs for Funds as Well

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- In its assault on terrorism, the U.S. may seek to
choke off profits from the Central Asian drug trade that are used to buy
arms and explosives. But some important potential allies in Washington's
struggle with Afghanistan are also believed to be reaping the rewards of
the nation's burgeoning heroin trade.

Nowhere is the problem clearer than along Afghanistan's northern border
with Tajikistan, a sworn ally in President Bush's antiterrorist efforts --
and a major conduit for heroin and opium on its way to consumers in Europe.

United Nations officials say as much as half of Afghanistan's opium and
heroin flows across the 800-mile border with Tajikistan before finding its
way to Russia and points west. For most of the past five years, the
narcotics have come from areas almost entirely controlled by the Northern
Alliance, the main rival of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, say
drug-enforcement officials. An aggressive Taliban offensive that has driven
Northern Alliance forces out of some border regions hasn't affected the
trade much.

The trade creates an awkward situation for the U.S., which hopes to enlist
the help of the Northern Alliance fighters, who know the dizzying mountains
and deserts of Afghanistan and could help in the effort to track down Osama
bin Laden, Washington's chief suspect in last month's terrorist attacks in
the U.S. Mr. Bush has demanded that the Taliban, who claim to know Mr. bin
Laden's whereabouts, turn him over.

The Taliban, invoking Islam, has largely stamped out opium production in
most of Afghanistan. Northern Alliance leaders, for their part, deny any
connection to drug trafficking but concede that it does take place on their
territory.

"All the leaders on both sides in Afghanistan are fed by drugs," says
Muzaffar Olimov, director of the Center for Oriental Studies, a Dushanbe
think tank. "It is of course not open or official, and nobody confirms it.
But people can't buy all the weapons that they have with gems alone."

U.N. officials hesitate to guess which side has been making more from the
drug trade in Afghanistan, which produces about 75% of the world's heroin.
But they do think the anticipated U.S. retaliation against terrorists in
Afghanistan, and perhaps the Taliban government itself, has sparked
selling. The officials say Afghan drug dealers, expecting a Western strike,
appear to be selling off their narcotic stockpiles for cash.

Meanwhile, across the Stans and the Caspian Sea, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley,
some pray for a speedy U.S. attack on Afghanistan. "It's good for
business," says Muhammed, standing in a garage full of cannabis, a pistol
tucked in his belt. He is just back from harvesting this year's cannabis
crop. "It'll drive up hashish prices," he explains.

Muhammed assures a prospective client that transport of 2,500 kilograms
(5,500 pounds) to Amsterdam from the Bekaa -- controlled by Syrian troops
as well as Syrian- and Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim Hezbollah fighters --
can be arranged. Like most farmers in this remote region, he has returned
to his time-honored crop for the first time in almost a decade. The revival
of Lebanon's drug trade symbolizes the failure of Western attempts to
persuade farmers to switch from high-value cannabis and poppy seeds to
unprofitable potatoes and vegetables.

There is a standard transport route here as well. The Bekaa's farmers say
an Istanbul-based company moves the hashish from eastern Lebanon to
Istanbul aboard Turkish trucks. In Istanbul, the hashish is switched to
German-made trucks, with German license plates, headed for Bologna, in
Italy. "Transportation is no issue," says Muhammed. "I spoke to our
transporters in Turkey this morning. The government isn't a problem either.
We can deal with them."

Back in Central Asia, Russian and Tajik border troops have pounced on more
than three tons of pure heroin in the past few months -- about three times
the amount they had discovered by this time last year. The heroin, they
say, is often high-quality, neatly tied in one-kilogram loaves and stamped
with trademarks by its manufacturers, like care packages with designer
labels. Any serious cleanup, however, could send tremors through
Tajikistan, which would be a valuable jumping-off point for military
operations against the Taliban but is itself badly addicted to the drug trade.

Drug money, in fact, has proved a lubricant for a peace agreement signed in
1997 that ended Tajikistan's civil war, analysts say. To persuade the
country's competing warlords to lay down their arms, military leaders and
their followers were given posts in the government. Now former warlords and
their troops control portions of the Tajik border, regional police and
customs. Says a Western diplomat: "Government people are up to their
eyeballs in the drug business."

Officials say Russian police last year seized one shipment of heroin that
was sent to Moscow in a diplomatic pouch. And Tajikistan was forced to
recall its ambassador from Kazakstan last year after police in Almaty
searched his car and a garage and found 62 kilograms of heroin and $54,000
in cash. The ambassador blamed the incident on his trade representative,
who he said had borrowed the car.