DRUG TRADE COULD BLOOM AMID CONFLICT

War Might Provide Smoke Screen For Traffic

Kalinin, Tajikistan -- Sprawled out on a pile of pillows in the adobe home
of Safar Safoyev, a Russian border officer demanded heroin. "Bring a
little," said the colonel, who went by his first name, Sasha. "Just a small
dose to show the guests."

Safoyev smiled slyly and said he didn't have any drugs at the moment. His
son, Roma, also grinned, showing a row of gold teeth, before slapping Sasha
on the shoulder.

Just 2 miles south of Safoyev's house lies Afghanistan, the world's largest
supplier of opium and heroin. This tiny village in southeastern Tajikistan
is one of the first stops on what is informally known as the Great Drug Road.

Afghanistan, which produces 4,000 tons of opium annually, or about 75
percent of the world's supply, uses impoverished Tajikistan, a former
Soviet republic, as a major transit country en route to Europe and the
United States.

And as U.S.-led forces prepare to strike against suspected terrorist havens
in Afghanistan, observers expect the chaos to lead to a dramatic increase
in drug trafficking.

Most opium is produced in territory controlled by the Taliban, which has
provided refuge to Osama bin Laden, the man the U.S. government suspects of
masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks. Just last week, the Taliban lifted its
14-month ban on poppy cultivation -- an activity they had called
"un-Islamic." Last year, the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed
Omar, had warned that "anyone violating this statute will be punished
accordingly." Opium production then dropped by 97 percent, according to
U.N. officials.

Poppy Crop Tied To Attacks

But Taliban officials told farmers to resume planting opium poppies if the
United States attacked the country. Observers speculate that the Islamic
government hopes to finance its defense against U.S. strikes with drug profits.

The Taliban, which charges a 30 percent tax on all opium production, had
used the drug as an important source of revenue to fight opposition forces
called the Northern Alliance. The mujahedeen fighters who battled the
Soviet Union for a decade also partly funded their resistance by selling opium.

Immediately after the announcement that farmers could resume production,
wholesale prices of heroin in Afghanistan dropped by more than 80 percent,
leading to speculation that Afghan traffickers may already be selling their
stock.

Pino Arlacchi, executive director of the U.N. Office for Drug Control and
Crime Prevention, says significant stockpiles of opium are scattered across
Afghanistan, where factories refine the drug before it is smuggled into
Tajikistan or Iran.

However, he says, initial sales may not be directed by the Taliban.
"Criminal groups, who are as powerful as the Taliban and as powerful as
anybody else in Afghanistan, have full control of those stockpiles," he
told the Associated Press.

The U.S. State Department and the United Nations have said that drug
traffickers also operate freely in areas controlled by the Northern
Alliance, the Afghan opposition that has been fighting the Taliban for
years and controls about 10 percent of the country. They are believed to
act as middlemen in the transportation of opium.

Routine Gunfire On Frontier

The 10,000 border guards who patrol the 682-mile Tajik-Afghan frontier
routinely trade fire with drug couriers, although a spokesman for the
guards said it was impossible to know whether the drug-runners worked for
the Taliban, the Northern Alliance or some other drug network.

In August, smugglers and Russian soldiers clashed 16 times, said Lt. Col.
Pyotr Gordiyenko, a spokesman for Russian border guards in Tajikistan's
capital, Dushanbe. Last year, four border guards were killed during such
clashes, he said.

The couriers drive across the border in Chevrolet Blazers surrounded by
bodyguards equipped with state-of-the-art night-vision and communication
gear, Gordiyenko says. Arlacchi says each drug run is protected by 20 to
150 armed men.

"The days when one courier carried 5 kilos of heroin are gone," Gordiyenko
said.

Drug trafficking through Tajikistan has increased substantially in recent
years. In 1994, border police seized 572 pounds of raw opium and heroin. In
contrast, they seized 4.8 tons during the first eight months of 2001,
Gordiyenko said.

The confusion caused by a full-scale war just south of the Tajik border
would make drug smuggling across the frontier even easier, border guards say.

"Everyone will be running back and forth. There will be piles of dead
bodies, wounded people," said Sasha, the Russian colonel. "No one would
notice the smugglers. No one would care about drugs anymore." Once the
drugs cross the border, it is not clear who takes them from the Afghan
couriers. The United Nation's Arlacchi says drug kingpins are often local
traders, fighters, a customs official or a local mayor.

Under Suspicion

Ever since 12 Russian soldiers based in the town of Dushanbe were caught
trying to ship 17 pounds of narcotics to Moscow, the Russian military has
also fallen under suspicion. And border guards, who transport weapons and
ammunition from Moscow for the alliance, privately say the Northern
Alliance sometimes pays for weapons with precious stones and, occasionally,
opium and heroin. Some observers, however, point at Taliban-trained Islamic
rebels in Tajikistan's mountains. Others say the smugglers inside
Tajikistan work for former opposition warlords who fought post-Communist
leaders during a five-year Tajik civil war that killed more than 30,000
people. Opposition leaders retained significant influence, observers say,
which they used in order to legitimize their share of the drug trade after
a power-sharing agreement in 1997 ended Tajikistan's conflict. Tajikistan's
southeastern Khatlonn region is rife with warlords and is a bastion of the
political opposition. In Kalinin, Safoyev's village of about 800 people,
residents earn an average wage of $15 a month and must endure frequent
droughts. There are no steady jobs to be had, no medicine to be found, no
food in shops.

"Once, we lived well in the village, we had jobs, we had cars," said
Safoyev, 69. "Now, we have one tractor, but no gas." As a result, local
residents appear to have found a trade that helps them to survive.

"Come on, bring me drugs," Sasha demanded again. "Where is the heroin?"