AFGHANISTAN AGAIN TOP HEROIN SOURCE

Afghanistan has re-emerged as the world's leading producer of opium
poppies, the source of heroin, with cultivation spreading throughout the
country's remote regions despite a ban by Afghan President Hamid Karzai,
federal authorities say.

Under the now-defunct Taliban, Afghanistan controlled 80 percent of the
heroin sold in Europe, and sales of the drug netted the regime $40 million
a year in profits, much of which went to al Qaeda terrorists who hid and
trained in that country.

Afghan traffickers also were making inquiries at the time about pushing
into the U.S. market.

Federal law-enforcement authorities, along with the U.N. Office on Drugs
and Crime in Vienna, Austria, believe that more than $1 billion worth of
opium poppies are now under cultivation — a crop that rivals those of the
"boom days" of the 1990s when Afghanistan controlled the world's heroin market.

Despite pronouncements in January by the Karzai administration banning
opium-poppy production, the U.N. office said in a February report that
"domestic warlords and international crime syndicates" continued to
dominate much of the country, and that dismantling the opium economy "will
be a long and complex process."

U.S. and U.N. authorities believe much of the Afghan crop had already been
planted by the time Mr. Karzai ordered the ban. The authorities also said
that despite government assurances that poppy fields were being destroyed,
few fields actually have been eradicated.

Afghan farmers, offered $1,250 a hectare by the government to destroy their
fields, are expected to receive $16,000 a hectare in profits from drug
processors and traffickers for growing poppies. More than 90,000 hectares,
or about 225,000 acres, are believed under cultivation this year.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, most of the heroin used
in the United States comes from Colombia and Mexico. On the street, its
cost ranges from $13,000 to $200,000 per kilogram, depending on its source,
purity, quantity, frequency of purchase and transportation costs.

High-purity Southeast Asian heroin (mainly from Burma) dominated the U.S.
market during the late 1980s and early 1990s, although its availability has
declined significantly. Southwest Asian heroin (primarily from Afghanistan)
is usually transported to Western Europe, Pakistan and Iran, the DEA said,
although Middle Eastern heroin traffickers continue to smuggle the drug to
ethnic enclaves in the United States.

DEA officials have been concerned that Afghan heroin traffickers, with a
renewed crop, might seek alliances with Colombian cartels now operating in
this country, or even compete with them.

"The whole question of Afghan heroin has piqued our interest, and we are
giving it serious attention," said DEA supervisory special agent Anthony P.
Placido, who heads the agency's New York division. "An Afghan resurgence in
heroin could mean they are looking to expand their market into the United
States by undercutting the Colombians."

Mr. Placido also said there are concerns that heroin sales in Afghanistan
could again be used to finance terrorism. He noted that a Taliban order in
2000 banning the cultivation of opium as "un-Islamic" was most likely a
public-relations ploy allowing drug traffickers to stockpile supplies of
opium and boost its price.

Last week, 10 Afghan nationals were arrested by DEA agents in New York on
suspicion of smuggling heroin from Pakistan and Afghanistan. A complaint
said the Afghans conspired to import 17 pounds of heroin over an 18-month
period, often concealing the drugs inside heat-sealed plastic tubing sewn
into the seams of traditional Afghan women's clothing.

Mr. Placido said all of the suspected smugglers are Afghan natives who now
live in New York and Pakistan, although there was no clear indication they
were tied to the resurgence in the Afghan heroin business.