AFGHAN HEROIN THREATENS NEIGHBORS

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- Heroin producers in Afghanistan, some of the
principal financiers of al-Qaida and other terrorists, have never
before been so brazen or so wealthy.

With a bumper crop of opium poppies under cultivation, Afghan
narco-barons have begun stamping their brand names on the 2.2-pound
bags of heroin they smuggle out of Central Asia to buyers in Moscow,
Amsterdam, London and New York.

Sacks of high-quality Afghan heroin seized in April in Tajikistan
carried the trademarks "Super Power" and "555." Some of the sacks,
which were hidden inside foil-lined containers of instant cappuccino
mix, even included the addresses of the labs in Afghanistan where the
heroin had been refined.

A Western-led campaign against opium-growing and heroin laboratories
has been a wholesale failure, and drug-control experts say the number
of processing facilities in Afghanistan has exploded over the last
year. The trade and huge sums of money involved threaten to undermine
vulnerable bordering states such as Tajikistan.

"There's absolutely no threat to the labs inside Afghanistan," said
Maj. Avaz Yuldashov of the Tajikistan Drug Control Agency. "Our
intelligence shows there are 400 labs making heroin there, and 80 of
them are situated right along our border. Some of them even work
outside, in the open air."

Some 200,000 acres of opium poppies have been planted in Afghanistan -
opium serves as the raw material of heroin - and the country's
late-summer harvest will produce three-fourths of the world's heroin.
That will mean further billions for growers, smugglers, corrupt
officials and Afghan warlords.

It's also likely to mean a windfall of tithes to al-Qaida and its
Islamist brethren now said to be regrouping in the mountains of
Central Asia.

"Drug trafficking from Afghanistan is the main source of support for
international terrorism now," Yuldashov said. "That's quite clear."

But in recent congressional testimony about heroin flow out of
Afghanistan, Drug Enforcement Administration head Karen Tandy spoke
only of "potential links" and "possible relationships" between Afghan
traffickers and terrorists. Drug agents in Central Asia say they're
baffled by Tandy's hedging.

"The connection is absolutely obvious to us," said Col. Alexander
Kondratiyev, a senior Russian officer who has served with border
guards in Tajikistan for nearly a decade. "Drugs, weapons, ammunition,
terrorism, more drugs, more terrorism -- it's a closed circle."

That circle has profound and ominous implications for the U.S.-led
fight against international terrorism. Regional diplomats, aid workers
and law-enforcement officials fear that the expanding drug trade will
destabilize one of the "stans," the five former Soviet republics that
gained independence after the U.S.S.R. collapsed.

They worry about the emergence of a Central Asian narco-state, a
country dominated by the drug economy and effectively controlled by a
heroin mafia with roots in Afghanistan and ties to al-Qaida and
regional Islamists.

"We have a deep responsibility to keep these Central Asian republics
from becoming failed states," said a Western diplomat in Dushanbe who
spoke on condition of anonymity. "Look what happened in Afghanistan.
It was a failed state -- and it became a nest for terrorists.

"We have to stop that same thing from happening here. For our own
security, we can't afford it."

At particular risk is Tajikistan, a desperately poor, predominantly
Muslim nation of 7 million.

Tajikistan produces almost no opium or heroin of its own, but it has
become a natural pathway for traffickers due to its 900-mile border
with Afghanistan. Also, enough heroin has been "falling off the
trucks" in Tajikistan that it now has galloping rates of heroin
addiction, drug crime and HIV infection.

The Tajik Drug Control Agency -- outmanned, outgunned and poorly
equipped -- said it managed to seize nearly 6 tons of heroin from
traffickers last year. Senior commanders estimate they catch about 20
percent of the traffic. Some analysts think it's probably about half
that much.

Tajikistan, isolated and landlocked, has almost no industrial economy
other than a state-controlled aluminum smelter. Foreign investment is
minuscule; not a single American firm is operating in the country.

The national budget is barely $300 million a year, a pittance compared
with the size of the drug economy. The heroin trade alone, Yuldashov
said, is 10 times bigger.

That kind of disparity leaves many Tajiks vulnerable to corruption and
compromise by wealthy drug mafiosi, especially when the average salary
is $10 a month and 80 percent of the population lives below the
poverty line. A single trip as a drug courier can feed a Tajik family
for a month.

Another worrisome development is in the offing for Tajikistan: Next
month, along the Afghan border, Russia will begin withdrawing 2,200
border-control officers who've been stationed here since the Soviet era.
Their departure and the loss of Russian funding could further undermine
Tajikistan's ability to defend itself from Afghan drug traffickers.