MI5 FEARS FLOOD OF AFGHAN HEROIN

Police and intelligence agencies have been warned that Britain is facing a
potentially huge increase in heroin trafficking because of massive and
unchecked replanting of the opium crop in Afghanistan, the Guardian has
learned.

The expectation is that the 2002 crop will be equivalent to the bumper one
of three years ago, which yielded 4,600 tonnes of raw opium.

Deep concern within law enforcement circles, particularly MI5, MI6 and
customs, has been reinforced by the latest assessment of the UN office for
drug control and crime prevention, based in Vienna.

Its field workers have just finished a study in Afghanistan and early
analysis of their work has revealed that "substantial regrowing has taken
place in several provinces". A full report will be published next Wednesday.

The UN spokesman Kemal Kurspahic warned yesterday that unless there was
urgent action to stop the crop being harvested at the end of March, then
the "best ever opportunity" to suffocate the illegal trade would be lost.

Afghanistan is the source of 75% of the world's heroin and 90% of Britain's
supply.

A ban on poppy growing in Afghanistan introduced by the Taliban in July
2000, coupled with severe droughts last year, reduced the country's opium
yield by 91% in 2001, but this had negligible effect on the market in
Europe because traders had significant stockpiles along their traditional
supply routes. The UN estimates that these stockpiles will be exhausted by
the end of this year.

Mr Kurspahic, who works for the UN office, said the organisation was in a
race against time to stop the fresh harvest restoring the traffickers' supply.

"If we don't stop the flow of drugs then everything else will have been in
vain," he said. "If there was no new production in Afghanistan this year
then shortages in Europe would be felt by the end of the year. We don't
have much time _ we have a window of opportunity. Sustaining the ban would
present the most promising ever development in drug control."

Even though Afghanistan's interim government, led by Hamid Karzai,
introduced an extensive ban on poppy growing last month, the dearth of law
enforcement outside the capital, Kabul, has rendered it meaningless.
"Post-war Afghanistan does not have a functioning law enforcement
capacity," Mr Kurspahic said. "We have to set up a law enforcement and drug
control mechanism as soon as we can. We cannot do much in the aid sector
until we have security."

One Whitehall official said yesterday that "enormous pressure" was be ing
put on Mr Karzai's government by the UN and western governments, but that
the situation was "immensely complicated in the current political
situation" because of fears that the issue could destabilise the fragile
administration.

"It is a political nightmare which could undermine the whole peace
process," a western intelligence source said.

Though poppies are grown throughout the country - including areas
controlled by the Northern Alliance - they are cultivated mainly in the
Pashtun-dominated south and east Afghanistan. "Isolate the Pashtuns and you
may dissuade them from backing the administration," the source said. One
possible solution is for European governments to buy the poppy crop, but
this would be highly controversial as well as costly. There is also
recognition that providing aid and substitute crops to poor farmers would
not necessarily solve the problem because any attempt to control the trade
would be resisted by local warlords.

Assessments of the replanting were difficult while the US bombing campaign
was at its height, but recent analyses by the British security services and
customs have sent shockwaves through the law enforcement community.

"The replanting in Afghanistan is of sufficient order that it could produce
a second bumper crop, similar to the 1998-99 harvest," an intelligence
source confirmed.