RUSSIAN BORDER GUARDS REPORT INCREASING DRUG FLOW FROM AFGHANISTAN

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Russian border guards deployed to protect
Tajikistan's volatile border with Afghanistan have confiscated more than a
ton of drugs smuggled into the former Soviet republic this summer, officials
said Monday.

The Russian border guards have confiscated 568 kilograms (1,250 pounds) of
drugs this month, up from 540 kilograms (1,188 pounds) in June, said border
guards spokesman Col. Alexander Kondratyev.

Of the drugs seized this month, heroin made up 510 kilograms (1,122 pounds),
up from 245 kilograms (539 pounds) confiscated in June, Kondratyev said.

The 10,700-strong Russian border contingent on the border seized 5 1/2
metric tons (six short tons) of drugs, about 42 percent of it heroin, last
year. Impoverished Tajikistan, which suffered a civil war in the 1990s, is a
major transit route for drugs moving from Afghanistan through Central Asia
and Russia to Europe.

According to internationally accepted estimates, the amount of narcotics
seized in any country accounts for about one-tenth of the actual flow of
drugs.

Kondratyev said four Russian border guards were wounded in six clashes with
drug traffickers this month. The border guards have detained five armed
smugglers, he said.

Russian officials have called on the world community to bolster efforts to
cut the cultivation of drugs in Afghanistan, saying that the launch of the
U.S.-led anti-terrorist campaign there last fall had not led to any drop in
drug production.

Tajik Border Guards chief Abdurakhmon Azimov said last weekend that up to
5,000 metric tons (5,500 tons) of recently harvested drugs are ready to be
smuggled through the Tajik-Afghan border. A second drug harvest is expected
in September.