Narcotics

AFGHANISTAN REMAINS A MAJOR DRUG TRADER DESPITE TALIBAN BAN

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 -- 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 its leaders banned
the growing of opium poppies. Many of the nation's impoverished farmers
counted on the harvest to feed their families, and the Taliban used tax
proceeds from it to buy arms.

United Nations 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 destroy existing stocks of narcotics. A United
Nations panel noted 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
before the ban on cultivation, raising the question of whether the Taliban
was stocking up.

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 have continued to be sold since the ban.

Before declaring an end to poppy cultivation, Afghanistan produced some 75
percent of the world's supply of opium, international narcotics experts said.

"The ban on poppy cultivation has been 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 has not ruled out military force.

"It may be one of the hardest things to go after," he said. "It might be
more efficient to use law enforcement and other instruments."

In trying to fight Afghanistan's drug trade, the United States might win
new cooperation from Iran, Russia and the central Asian states, which face
mounting problems with addiction and narcotics crime.

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 variously estimated to control five 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 United Nations report
estimated that the Taliban earned $15 million to $27 million annually from
taxes levied on opium production, an estimate that did not include any
proceeds from trading drugs. An American 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 continued to export opium and heroin.
"The amount of heroin that has been seized has not changed," Mohammad S.
Amirkhizi, a senior official at the United Nations Office of Drug Control
and Crime Prevention in Vienna, said in a telephone interview. "The amount
of opium seized only shows a 30 percent decrease in Iran and not in other
cases. That shows that stocks are still available."

A former American official said that intelligence experts have 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 does not actually traffic in drugs, but makes money off the heroin
trade by hiring out his fighters to guard laboratories and escort drug
convoys moving through Iran to Turkey, where often the opium base is
processed into heroin.

In recent days, there has been concern that the Taliban may escalate the
drug war by increasing the export of drugs and suspending the ban on poppy
cultivation. The price of opium within Afghanistan has plummeted, according
to the United Nations Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention, which
says the price for a kilo of opium in Afghanistan was $700 on Sept. 11. By
Sept. 18, it was $180. By Sept. 24, the price had dropped to $90.

United Nations officials said the price fall may reflect problems in
exporting drugs in a region that may soon be ringed with troops and combat
aircraft. But another theory is that the price has dropped because the
Taliban may end their ban on poppy growth in response to an American
military strike or find they cannot enforce the ban as the planting season
resumes in a few weeks.