TAKE THE WAR TO THE DRUG LORDS

A SKINNY man opened the gate at the sprawling compound in Quetta, in
western Pakistan. When I asked if the property belonged to
Afghanistan's most powerful drug smuggler, he smiled and nodded. "Haji
Juma Khan has 200 houses," he said. "And this is one of them."

I had been trying to track down Mr. Khan for years when I found this
residence on a dusty, garbage-strewn alley. It hardly seemed an
auspicious address for a man who American officials say moved as much
as $1 billion worth of opium every year, hiring the Taliban to protect
his colossal narcotics shipments and paying corrupt officials in
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to look the other way.

I said I was a journalist and wanted to interview the boss. "He is on
the run and we have not seen him," said another man, who introduced
himself as Mr. Khan's clerk. "But please come inside and have a cup of
tea."

Even with the top man on the run, Mr. Khan's network ran a string of
heroin labs in the mountainous area where the borders of Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Iran merge. He had built huge underground storage bunkers
in remote deserts for his product. He came to the attention of Western
law enforcement officials for sending drug convoys made up of dozens
of S.U.V.'s packed with narcotics, which were then unloaded onto ships
along Pakistan's southern coast.

Last October, about three months after I drank tea with his colleagues
in Quetta, Mr. Khan was arrested and extradited to the United States.
He is now jailed at New York City's Metropolitan Correctional Center,
awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics with
intent to support a terrorist organization. His capture was a major,
if little noticed, victory in the war on drugs in Afghanistan,
although my contacts in Quetta tell me his relatives are keeping the
network going strong.

Studying Mr. Khan's operations allowed me to understand the challenges
of fighting Afghanistan's opium trade, which at once benefits the
Taliban, Al Qaeda and corrupt officials in Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Iran. It also provided some insight on how to reshape our
counternarcotics strategy.

So far, Western-led efforts to fight the opium trade in Afghanistan
have focused mainly on eradicating poppy crops, a policy that has done
little to hamper the drug lords and simply victimized poppy farmers
and poor sharecroppers who work the land. As the Obama administration
overhauls strategy in Afghanistan, installing Lt. Gen. Stanley
McChrystal as the top commander, the focus of antidrug efforts should
be on the smugglers and drug processors.

First, there must be stepped-up efforts to take down powerful
traffickers like Mr. Khan and to cut off the Taliban's opium profits,
which the United Nations calculates to be worth $400 million a year.
Their greatest earnings don't come at the farming level, but from
protecting shipments leaving farm areas and taxing drug refineries.

A good start would be using air attacks to destroy drug convoys
carrying opium on smuggling trails toward the Pakistani border, using
the same infrared technology employed along the Mexican border to
avoid hitting civilian vehicles. Working with local law enforcement,
NATO forces must also establish checkpoints along major arteries and
border crossings and search all vehicles for drugs - even those
belonging to senior Afghan government officials and their relatives.
Taliban warriors may be able to slip over the mountainous borders in
secret, but large drug shipments often go by road.

In October, NATO gave its commanders a mandate to destroy drug
refineries, but many have been reluctant to do so. Not only should
they take the offensive, but they should put an emphasis on arresting
the chemists and other specialists operating the labs, who are
difficult to replace. Some NATO nations in the Afghan coalition have
placed restrictions on their troops that prevent them from
participating in American-led counternarcotics operations. That's
short-sighted, given that Afghan heroin tends to end up on European
streets. Until such restrictions are dropped, troops from those
nations should be deployed to provide security, freeing up American
and Afghan soldiers for combat linked to the opium trade.

In addition, until Afghanistan's notoriously weak judiciary and police
can be reformed, we should bring any major smugglers to the United
States for trial, as was done with Mr. Khan.

Afghanistan's drug problem extends beyond its borders. While Pakistan
seems finally to be taking the fight to the Taliban elements in its
northwestern frontier areas, it must simultaneously round up leaders
of powerful cartels that operate from Baluchistan province in the
southwest. These men supply insurgents with money, vehicles,
communications equipment and weapons. Some even run guesthouses and
hospitals that treat wounded Taliban soldiers. One alleged kingpin,
Sakhi Dost Muhammad Notezai, has been wanted by American authorities
since the late 1980s. Yet, despite evidence that his clan is still
tied to smuggling opium, his son is the transportation minister for
Baluchistan.

Stopping the drug flow is only half the battle: the money flows along
separate routes from the opium, and disrupting financial flows may be
tougher. To that end, Washington should subsidize efforts to regulate
both Afghanistan's bank transfers and the informal hawala network, the
subcontinent's unregulated version of the Western Union. Most hawala
transfers are legitimate - Western aid groups in Afghanistan, for
example, use it to send funds to rural field offices. But the system
also moves drug money. The Treasury Department has put together a
sound proposal that would not add costs for those using the hawala
system but would allow the authorities to track who sent how much
money, and to whom.

In the end, no counternarcotics program will make a difference in the
war if Afghanistan and Pakistan fail to improve their governance. The
Taliban are gaining ground not because they are well liked (they
aren't, in either place) but because the governments in both countries
are seen as incompetent and corrupt. Many experts believe that corrupt
officials on both sides of the border earn even more off the drug
trade than the Taliban do.

As the Taliban and Al Qaeda become intertwined with smugglers like
Haji Juma Khan, they swell in economic and military might. And then a
drug problem that began as a regional headache becomes a global
security nightmare: a two-headed monster of criminal smugglers and
rich terrorist groups with deadly global ambitions.

Gretchen Peters is the author of "Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is
Bankrolling the Taliban
and Al Qaeda."