UK BRACED FOR FLOOD OF AFGHAN HEROIN

Cheap Afghan heroin is set to flood the streets of Britain and Europe in a
few months as the first post-Taliban poppy crop is harvested and processed
with the blessing of America's warlord allies.

US officials have all but abandoned immediate efforts to persuade Afghan
farmers to abandon the lucrative narcotics trade and to plant legitimate
alternatives because of the difficulty of enforcing a ban.

Britain has opposed buying up the present crop, fearing it would simply
encourage the planting of another one in October. Farmers struggling to
feed their families after two decades of war and several years of drought
can earn 100 times more from poppies than from wheat.

The UN estimates that up to 161,000 acres of poppies are set to be
harvested from the end of this month. Most of the main growing areas are in
sectors controlled by tribal warlords and the main players in the Northern
Alliance which helped topple the Taliban.

A UN spokesman said the potential existed for Afghanistan to recapture its
place as supplier of 75% of the world's heroin supply. More than 90% of the
drug sold in Britain already comes from the fertile valleys of the Hindu
Kush mountains.

The going rate for a kilo of the opium base in the bazaars of Kabul and
Kandahar is UKP500. A 50kilo bag of the base produces about 5kilo of pure
heroin, which is then cut with baking powder and other substances to
multiply its value thousands of times.

A UN source warned that the dealers already have enough of a stockpile to
supply every European addict's needs for the next year. "The new crop will
enable them to step up supplies."

The raw material leaves Afghanistan by the same mountain smuggling routes
used by al Qaeda and Taliban fighters seeking sanctuary in Pakistan and is
processed and refined into heroin and morphine in backstreet "factories" in
Peshawar and Quetta.

From there, it is shipped out of Karachi or begins a long overland journey
to the west via Tajikistan, the Ukraine, Russia and the Balkans. Only 5-10%
is ever intercepted by police or security services en route.