TALIBAN REVERSES STANCE, OKS OPIUM GROWING

WASHINGTON - The Taliban government in Afghanistan has told farmers
they can once again produce opium if the United States launches an
attack on the country, reversing its position last year when the
group's leader said drug cultivation was "un-Islamic," United Nations
officials said Tuesday.

Drug control officials said the decision would likely result in a
boom of opium cultivation beginning in about two weeks, the start of
growing season.

They believe the turnabout was motivated by the Taliban's, and
possibly terror groups', needs for more funding, as well as a
recognition that even if the government wanted to control illicit
drugs, it would be hard-pressed to police fields after a U.S. attack.

As a sign of the expectation that an increased opium supply is about
to hit the world's drug markets, the price for a kilogram of Afghan
opium has plummeted in the last two days to about $100 from $500,
according to United Nations narcotics officials, who attribute the
rapid sell-off of stockpiles to fears of an imminent attack.

The United States, meanwhile, has renewed pressure on the United Arab
Emirates to crack down on financial transactions that are believed to
be linked to drugs and the al-Qaida terror group led by Saudi exile
Osama bin Laden, two administration officials said.

While the bulk of Afghan drugs is transported along an ancient trade
route across Iran, Turkey, the Balkans and then into Europe, U.N. and
U.S. narcotics officials also say that drugs are moved overland from
Pakistan and then by boat to the Emirates, as well as by cargo planes
between the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and Dubai. Cargo planes
had been flying that route at least twice weekly in violation of U.N.
sanctions against Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban took over much of Afghanistan in 1996, the drug
trade has boomed, producing about 70 percent of the world's opium,
which is refined in laboratories to make heroin. An estimated 90
percent of Europe's heroin last year originated from Afghan fields.

But in July 2000, the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar,
prohibited farmers from growing any more poppy, calling it a
violation of Islamic law.

Despite the ban, however, the flow of opium has not stopped, say drug
control officials.