TALIBAN'S OPIUM INCOME REMAINS A KEY LIFELINE

WASHINGTON The Taliban government in Afghanistan has earned tens of
millions of dollars from the export of heroin and other narcotics since it
proclaimed last year that it was ending opium poppy cultivation, American
officials say.

Cutting off this important source of revenue is part of the Bush
administration's economic campaign against the regime, the officials said.

The Taliban won international acclaim in July 2000 when their leaders
banned the growing of opium poppies, a harvest that many of the nation's
impoverished farmers had come to count on to feed their families but which
the regime has also used to raise money.

UN inspectors who have toured the country say that poppy cultivation has,
in fact, been largely eradicated in areas under the Taliban's control, a
finding confirmed by American narcotics experts who visited Afghanistan in
June.

But the Taliban did not outlaw the possession or sale of opium, and the
existence of stockpiles was known to the United Nations, which noted in a
report in May that Afghan opium poppy production had leaped to 4,600 tons
in 1999 from 2,500 tons in 1998, and was 3,100 tons in 2000.

American experts now aiding the Bush administration's effort to muster an
international coalition against terrorism and the Taliban protectors of
Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, say that
enormous quantities of opium and of heroin itself have been hidden around
the country, and are being sold. Before declaring an end to poppy
cultivation, Afghanistan produced about 75 percent of the world's supply of
opium, international narcotics experts said.

"The ban on poppy cultivation has been very effective in Taliban controlled
areas," one American official said. "But we believe the stockpile from last
year is still funding the Taliban. Opium and heroin are a major source of
the Taliban's income."

The Bush administration would now like to cut off that money.

"We will be using all instruments of our power against them, and one major
area is their finances," a senior Defense Department official said. "Drugs
are very important to that." Another senior official familiar with the
military planning said that targeting stockpiles of opium, the raw
ingredient for heroin, and laboratories was difficult and not a principal
aim of the military campaign. But he said that Washington had not ruled out
military force.

"It may be one of the hardest things to go after," he said. "If there is a
way to do it, we will try. But it might be more efficient to use law
enforcement and other instruments."

In trying to fight Afghanistan's drug trade, the United States may win new
cooperation from Iran, Russia and the Central Asian states, which face
growing problems with addiction and the criminality that comes with
narcotics smuggling. The Taliban have relied on revenues from the drug
trade for years and have used the proceeds to buy weapons to fight the
Northern Alliance, the rebel group estimated to control 5 percent to 15
percent of Afghanistan's territory.

At first, the Taliban was taxing poppy cultivation and charging fees for
narcotics production, American officials say. A UN report estimated that
the Taliban earned $15 million to $27 million from taxes levied on opium
production, an estimate that did not include any proceeds the Taliban may
have derived from trading drugs. A U.S. official estimated that the total
annual revenue was $40 million to $50 million.

Then the Taliban announced an end to opium cultivation. But the narcotics
trade flourished as drug traffickers exported more opium and heroin.

"The amount of heroin that has been seized has not changed," Mohammed
Amirkhizi, a senior official at the UN Office of Drug Control and Crime
Prevention in Vienna, said in a telephone interview.

A former American official said that intelligence experts had never
established a direct link between the trade and Mr. bin Laden.

Two senior congressional aides with access to intelligence reports said
that Mr. bin Laden did not actually traffic in drugs, but made money from
the heroin trade by hiring out his fighters to guard laboratories and to
escort drug convoys moving through Iran to Turkey.