HEROIN MONEY FUELS TERRORISTS

Multiple heroin trafficking organizations are operating inside Afghanistan
with profits being used to finance at least three terrorist groups, U.S.
lawmakers and administration officials said yesterday. "We know that some
traffickers provide logistical assistance to extremists -- especially to
remnants of the Taliban -- and that some extremist groups raise money by
taxing poppy production and profiting from the processing and sale of
narcotics," said Thomas W. O'Connell, the assistant secretary of defense
for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Mr. O'Connell's
testimony before the House International Relations Committee reflected an
emerging picture of the al Qaeda heroin connection, which has become more
clear since December, when Navy ships in the northern Arabian Sea seized
boats, operated by crew members believed to have al Qaeda ties, concealing
stashes of heroin.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican, who heads the committee, said the
vast amounts of illicit money generated by the Afghan drug industry are
"ripe for the taking by al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their terrorist allies."
Mr. Hyde said stemming poppy cultivation will be a long-term issue for the
Afghan government but stressed that "now is the time" for the Defense
Department to treat known opium processing labs and dumps in Afghanistan as
"legitimate military targets."

Mr. O'Connell said Taliban remnants, al Qaeda operatives and such other
extremists as Hezb-I-Islami or HiG, a group loyal to warlord Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, "do not by themselves control narcotics networks," but are part
of a fragmented illegal narcotics industry in the war-torn country. In
testimony yesterday, Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican, said the
heroin group Haji Bashir Noorzai in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar
"reportedly provides 2,000 kilograms of heroin every eight weeks to bin
Laden lieutenants in Pakistan."

"At the Pakistani price for heroin, this one conduit gives Osama bin Laden
an annual income of $28 million per year," he said. Last month, Mr. Kirk
said, heroin is now bin Laden's No. 1 asset. The view of bin Laden as
"relying on Wahhabi donations from abroad is outdated" and that a "more
accurate, up-to-date view" is that bin Laden is one of the world's largest
heroin dealers, he had said. Bush administration officials say opium
producers in Afghanistan account for more than 75 percent of the world's
opium poppies. Some estimate heroin sales make up at least half of the
Afghan economy, with struggling Afghan farmers relying by economic
necessity on growing opium poppies. Assistant Secretary of State Robert B.
Charles yesterday testified that "Afghanistan is already at risk of its
narco-economy leading unintentionally but inexorably to the evolution of a
narco-state."

Last month, Mr. Charles, who heads the State Department's Bureau for
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), said the United
States will begin a $310 million drug-eradication effort in Afghanistan.
The program, led by the INL, seeks to designate drug kingpins for
extradition and prosecution, and to close the Afghan border to opium and
heroin traffickers.