FEATURE: WAR ON DRUGS NOW IN AFGHANISTAN

WASHINGTON -- The Afghan government and its American allies have opened a
new front in Afghanistan as the war on terror intensifies. Their new
target: Afghanistan's poppy fields that have enriched Afghan warlords for
decades. And it promises to be as difficult and bloody as the war on terror.

In a message issued on Drug Abuse Resistance Education day Wednesday, U.S.
President George W. Bush declared, "When we fight the war on drugs, we also
fight the war on terror."

Although the latest battle in the ongoing war against drugs began only this
week, a dozen people have already been killed. At least four bystanders
died Monday in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad -- victims of a bomb
apparently intended to kill Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim. The minister
was visiting the city the day the Afghan government launched a campaign to
persuade local farmers to give up poppy cultivation.

Eight people were killed in Helmund, a province known as the largest drug
producer in Afghanistan, in a clash between farmers and government troops
attempting to prevent poppy farming.

Afghanistan's war on opium is just more of the same for the beleaguered
country. War is nothing new for Afghanistan.

First one, then another, then another. The Soviets invaded in 1979 and
battled mujahadeen for 10 years before leaving in defeat as the Soviet
Union crumbled. Then Taliban battled the mujahadeen for six years before
riding triumphantly into Kabul and running their enemies into northern
Afghanistan. Now the mujahadeen are back, with the help of the U.S.
military, and the interim government is following the urging of the United
States and attacking the opium crop -- the country's most profitable export
and a staple for farmers for decades.

For the last 20 years, heroin addicts have supported the wars. Junkies in
Europe and the United States have paid dearly for the magic powder that
started as a beautiful flower in Afghan poppy fields.

The opium poppy crop paid for weapons to fight the Soviet tanks and
helicopters, with some of the weapons coming from the American CIA. And
opium paid for weapons for the mujahadeen and Taliban fighters.

So a country seemingly addicted to war fed its habit with money from
Westerners addicted to heroin. Now the interim government is sending armed
troops to kill the goose that has laid the golden eggs for so many warlords
over the years.

So it looks like the same war with a different name: the war on drugs.

Poppy farmers, upset over the interim Afghan government's decision to ban
poppy cultivation, have blocked roads in eastern Afghanistan, stopping the
traffic between Kabul and the city of Jalalabad. A U.N. official said
earlier this week the roadblock forced the world body to halt temporarily
the repatriation of 18,000 refugees from Pakistan.

A spokesman for the Afghan foreign ministry said in Kabul earlier this week
that the assassination attempt on the defense minister might have been
engineered by local drug lords resisting government efforts to ban poppy
farming.

Such incidents draw attention to Afghanistan's drug producers, who had been
pushed in the background during the war on terrorism.

Since the early 1980s, when heroin was first introduced to the region,
Afghanistan has been a major source of the drug smuggled to the Middle East
and Western Europe. Some of it also reaches North America.

According to the official U.S. government estimate for 2001, Afghanistan
produced about 74 metric tons of opium from 1,685 hectares of land under
opium poppy cultivation. This is a significant decrease from the 3,656
metric tons of opium produced from 64,510 hectares of land under opium
poppy cultivation in 2000. The reduction followed a ban imposed by the
former Taliban regime during the previous cultivation season. But U.S. and
U.N. drug enforcement agents working in the region fear that the ongoing
war on terrorism has given the drug producers a free hand and the opium
production can go up unless the Afghan government enforces the ban rigorously.

The U.N. Drug Control Program also estimated a reduction in 2000, pointing
to a 10 percent reduction in land under opium poppy cultivation and the
impact of a protracted drought in the region.

Yet Afghan farmers produced more than 70 percent of the world's supply of
illicit opium in 2000.

Morphine base, heroin and hashish produced in Afghanistan are trafficked
worldwide.

The latest U.S. Justice Department report, which covers the previous
cultivation and reaping seasons, describes opium products as the largest
source of income in Afghanistan due to the decimation of the country's
economic infrastructure from years of warfare.

It blames the instability caused by the Soviet invasion of 1979, the civil
strife that followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the lack of a
centralized authority in Afghanistan as the main reasons for large-scale
poppy cultivation in the country.

Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan also are major sources for cannabis,
which grows wild in the region and is cultivated in Afghanistan. Together,
they produce about 1,000 metric tons of cannabis resin -- hashish -- each
year, with Afghanistan providing most of it.

Laboratories in Afghanistan and Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt
convert opium into morphine base, white heroin, or one of three grades of
brown heroin, depending on the order received. Large processing labs dot
southern Afghanistan and smaller laboratories are in other areas of
Afghanistan, including the eastern Nangarhar province.

In the past, many opium-processing laboratories were in Pakistan,
particularly in the Northwest Frontier Province in regions mostly
controlled by local tribal leaders. These laboratories appear to have
relocated to Afghanistan, both to be closer to the source of opium and to
avoid law enforcement actions by the Pakistani government.

According to a report prepared by the Europe and Asia unit of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, the morphine base is shipped to Turkey and
converted to heroin and smuggled to European and North American markets.

Some liquid heroin or heroin hydrochloride of high purity levels also is
produced in Afghanistan.

Although in 1999, Taliban officials claim destroying a large number of
heroin processing labs in Nagarhar, independent sources said the labs were
simply moved to less accessible areas where they continued to produced the
drug. There are also laboratories in Helmund, another province where the
Taliban claimed it had destroying them.

Both U.N. and U.S. officials say that that the reported destruction of
laboratories by the Taliban had almost no impact on opiate conversion in
the region.

Pakistan, which has almost 3 million drug addicts, is a major market for
Afghan heroin. But a large quantity of heroin produced in Afghanistan is
sent to Europe using land routes, as the landlocked country has no ports.
It is estimated that 80 percent of opiate products in Europe originate in
Afghanistan.

Morphine base is transported overland through Pakistan and Iran, or
directly to Iran from Afghanistan, and then into Turkey. Shipments of
Afghan-produced morphine base also go by sea from Pakistan's Makran Coast.
Routes north through the Central Asia Republics, then across the Caspian
Sea and south into Turkey are also used. Heroin also continues to be
trafficked from Afghanistan through Pakistan.

A recent DEA report said, "The traffickers quickly adjust heroin smuggling
routes based on political and weather conditions."

Hashish originating in Afghanistan is trafficked throughout the region, as
well as to international markets. Although the bulk of the hashish intended
for international heroin markets is routed through Pakistan and Central
Asia and sent by sea, train or truck, hashish has been smuggled in
airfreight in the past.

Afghanistan produces no essential or precursor chemicals. Acetic anhydride,
which is the most commonly used acetylating agent in heroin processing, is
smuggled primarily from Pakistan, India, the Central Asian Republics,
China, and Europe. According to the World Customs Organization, China
seized 5,670 metric tons of AA destined for Afghanistan in April 2000. The
AA was found in 240 plastic boxes concealed in carpets.

Afghanistan also became an attractive base of drug smugglers because it
allowed easy money laundering. The country's banking system was destroyed
by the years of war. It was replaced by an informal system known as hawala
- -- which means reference in Urdu and Persian -- or hundi system. It
operates through an informal, traditional network that has been used for
centuries by businesses and families throughout Asia. This system provides
a confidential, convenient, efficient service at a low cost in areas that
are not served by traditional banking facilities. U.S. and U.N. officials
have estimated that since 1980s, when heroin was first introduced to the
region, the drug traffickers have laundered billions of dollars through the
hawala system.

Relatively low cost of raw opium, heroin, hashish and precursor chemicals
also make Afghanistan an attractive base for drug producers. During the
previous season, the Iranian press reported that one kilogram of heroin
could be purchased for $2,000 on the Tajikistan- Afghanistan border, but
the price rose to $15,000 as it reached Dushanbe, the capital of
Tajikistan. The same kilogram of heroin could be sold for $150,000 in
Moscow, according to Russian press reports.

And each dawn, as each addict slides up to his supplier in some alley or
out-of-the-way spot and gets his supply for the day, some of the money he
hands the dealer eventually makes its way back to Afghanistan.