UN OFFICIAL WANTS COALITION TO FIGHT AFGHAN DRUGS TRADE

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)--The chief of the U.N. anti-drugs agency wants the
U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan to help fight the country's booming
drugs trade, which he says is fueling terrorism.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material of
heroin , and last year accounted for about of three quarters of the global
supply.

"You have a dramatic problem here: an illicit activity which is feeding a
monster with many heads," Antonio Maria Costa, the chief of the U.N. Office on
Drugs and Crime, told The Associated Press late Friday at the end of a weeklong
visit.

He claimed that proceeds from the drug trade were funding terrorist groups such
as al-Qaida as well as the Taliban and Afghan military commanders who are part
of the U.S.-backed government but in practice control their own private armies.

"There's no doubt that in a number of provinces the commanders are involved.
It's a known fact," Costa said.

He said that Afghanistan produced 3,400 tons of opium last year - a huge
increase on the final year of the former hardline Taliban regime, which
successfully banned cultivation of the poppy crop before its ouster in late
2001.

The country produced 4,500 tons of opium in 1999 before the ban took effect.

It's not yet clear how this year's crop will compare, but Costa predicted that
the revenue from opium cultivation would probably decrease significantly as
prices had dropped by about 50% in the past year.

To glean more profits, increasing amounts of opium were being refined into
heroin inside the country instead of being exported to be refined elsewhere, he
said.

The wave of cheap heroin smuggled across Afghanistan's borders has alarmed
neighbors such as Russia, whose drugs control chief this week called for more
international pressure on Afghanistan to reduce the flow.

Costa said that Afghanistan was virtually rebuilding from scratch after years
of war, and had little capacity to track down and prosecute drug dealers. He
said drugs generated about $1.2 billion in Afghanistan annually, but the budget
of its counter-narcotics agency was only $3 million.

He said he was trying to persuade U.S.-led coalition forces to disrupt the
Afghan drug trade.

"Hopefully we can build a convincing argument that the resources generated by
the opium economy are being channeled toward terrorism. I believe that's a good
reason to motivate those fighting terrorism to fight narcotics too," he said.