TALEBAN VICTORIES BOOST HEROIN TRADE

SOME fled Taleban's September advances eastwards with nothing but the
clothes they stood in. Some escaped with a bag of clothes and a blanket. A
few made for the hills with pick-up trucks stacked with sacks of top-grade
heroin. United Nations officials monitoring the world's primary heroin
route say they fear that if Taleban succeeds in conquering the whole of
Afghanistan, the narcotics trade from the war-ravaged state will be unified
into a single entity. "If they get the whole area, they get the whole
[drugs] network," one said. The new crisis in trying to stem the flood of
drugs pouring through Central Asia to Europe has come with the summer
victories of Taleban. Fuelled largely by drug money - Afghanistan is
responsible for 79 per cent of the world's opium - as well as support from
Pakistan, the extremist Islamic movement has pushed north in the past
month. To the dismay of the United States, Britain and Russia, who fear
destabilisation of Central Asia, Taleban has captured Taloqan, a stronghold
of Ahmed Shah Masood, the rebel leader regarded as a hero by many in the West.

Already the impact is becoming clear to UN officials in the Office for Drug
Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP). "They don't have to deal with any
intermediaries any more," one said. "They just take over the existing
smuggling structures."

UN officials say that heroin traffickers loyal to the beleaguered
opposition were forced to abandon large opium stocks in Taloqan to the
Taleban thrust, while moving bulk loads of heroin northeast to towns such
as Yangi Qale. Here they are stockpiled awaiting export to Tajikistan and
on to Western Europe.

In the wilderness of northern Afghanistan, on an arid plain just south of
the Pjandz River, which borders Tajikistan, Yangi Qale is set apart from
the poverty of similar towns in Afghanistan by its relative affluence.
Construction teams scramble over scaffolding encasing new buildings and
motorbikes roam the dusty streets. "The powder business makes this town
rich," Mirza, a local Afghan, said. "Some get paid in cash, some get paid
in bikes. Look at all the buildings. Do you see anything new anywhere else
in Afghanistan?" Antonella Deledda, the ODCCP's regional chief based in
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, said that there are now two big routes for heroin
leaving Afghanistan. Yangi Qale lies on the northern end of the main one.
Opium processed into heroin in laboratories in northern Afghanistan between
Kunduz and Taloqan is smuggled into Tajikistan along the 120-mile front
between the towns of Pjandz and Moskovskij.

Typically, the loads, of up to 200lb, have an escort of 15 guards, the
ODCCP says. An armed reconnaissance group moves ahead while the cargo is
carried on mules by the main body of men. Behind follow five or six more
fighters with heavy machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades. They cross
the Pjandz River on the border in rafts and inflated tyres before handing
the cargo over to groups waiting on the other side.

On the second route, opium processed around Faizabad in northeastern
Afghanistan is moved through mountains into southeastern Tajikistan.

Ms Deledda gave little credibility to an edict by the Taleban leader in
Afghanistan, Mullah Omar, banning the cultivation of opium poppies. "It's
not the first time we have heard this from Taleban," she said. "We believe
their interests linked to drug cultivation are very important to them, and
a major factor contributing to the Afghan war."

She also laid the blame for trafficking on some commanders in the Masood
forces. She argued that although only 4 per cent of Afghanistan's opium was
cultivated in zones controlled by Commander Masood, up to 40 per cent of
opium grown in Taleban areas to the south passed through his territory with
the connivance of local warlords.

A drug enforcement agency inaugurated on Saturday by the ODCCP in
Tajikistan is now trying to halt its flow. The Tajik Drug Control Agency
(TDCA) was formed with the help of Ian Oliver, a retired Chief Constable
and formerly deputy director of Scotland Yard, and Giovanni Salvi, an
Italian prosecutor specialising in anti-mafia legislation.

Tajikistan is still plagued with corruption. A recent crackdown found 140lb
of heroin and $54,000 ($37,000) in a car belonging to the Tajik Ambassador
in Kazakhstan, and another 20lb of heroin in the garage of a Tajik trade
representative.

The squeeze felt by heroin traffickers in the wake of the TDCA's successes
has led some criminal groups to take the easier if less remunerative option
of drug-dealing within the country. As a result, heroin addiction in
Central Asia is escalating at furious speed.