AFGHANISTAN DESTROYS HASHISH, HEROIN

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's Taliban rulers burned thousands of
pounds of hashish and heroin, and officials today rejected U.N. criticism
that they have balked at cracking down on narcotics.

The giant bonfire occurred Wednesday in southern Kandahar, the headquarters
of the Taliban movement, which rules 90 percent of Afghanistan, the
movement's official Radio Shariat reported today.

Turbaned Taliban soldiers set fire to 8,250 pounds of hashish and 110
pounds of heroin seized by the Taliban's religious police in Helmand,
Kandahar and Herat provinces. They also smashed 10 bottles of wine, which
like all alcohol is banned under Islamic law.

In its 1999 report, released Wednesday, the U.N.-sponsored International
Narcotics Control Board called Afghanistan the world's largest producer of
opium - used to make heroin. The report said the Taliban's commitment to
stopping opium production was "questionable" because they tax the poppy
crop and the heroin being manufactured from it.

The Taliban spokesman, Abdul Hai Muttmain, defended the movement's
narcotics policies. He said today that Taliban supreme leader Mullah
Mohammed Omar issued an edict ordering a one-third reduction in poppy
cultivation.

But, Muttmain said, Afghanistan is a country devastated by war and its
people are among the world's poorest. Without international financial
assistance, they won't voluntarily stop growing poppies.

"They have to eat. They have their families to feed. They have to live.
It's not an easy thing to just say stop growing poppies," he said by
telephone from Kandahar.

Taliban proponents say the tax on the crop is an Islamic tax that is
charged on all agricultural products, including poppies.

Muttmain denied any tax of heroin production. "It is not true, but we are
not surprised that the United Nations is saying this because they are
hostile toward us," he said. "Heroin is completely against Islam and is
banned." U.N. statistics say heroin production in Afghanistan totaled 4,600
tons in 1999.

Last November the U.N. imposed limited sanctions on the Taliban to press
them to hand over suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden to the United States
or a third country for trial. The Taliban have refused; saying there is no
proof against bin Laden and it is against Afghan tradition to hand a guest
over to his enemy.

The Taliban, who are battling opposition forces holding around 10 percent
of the country, espouse a harsh brand of Islamic law that bans women from
working, girls from attending school beyond 8 years old and forces men to
wear a beard and pray in the mosque.