AFGHAN HEROIN FUELS NEW ROUND OF FIGHTING IN BALKANS

SKOPJE -- EXTREMIST Albanian rebels seeking to start a new round of
conflict in the southern Balkans have bought millions of pounds worth of
weapons with the proceeds of heroin smuggling from Afghanistan to the
streets of a dozen European capitals.

Senior drug trade analysts from the United Nations Drug Control Programme
in Vienna and Western police officials say much of the heroin being sold in
countries such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland is starting to come from
multi-billion pound stocks of Afghan heroin in Central Asia. Much of it is
controlled by al-Qa'ida and the former Taliban regime.

European drug squad officers say Albanian and Kosovar Albanian dealers are
ruthlessly trying to seize control of the European heroin market, worth up
to Euro20bn a year, and have already taken over the trade in at least six
European countries.

Western intelligence officials in Kosovo, Macedonia and Switzerland say
Albanian gangs have used at least Euro5m of their heroin profits since
October last year to buy weapons to re-equip rebels in Macedonia who gave
up their weapons to Nato troops last autumn.

Dr Thomas Pietschmann, a senior researcher with the UNDCP in Vienna, says
bumper opium harvests in Afghanistan in 1999 and 2000 mean that stockpiles
of heroin and opium worth between Euro50bn and pounds Euro90bn are still
held by Afghan, Pakistani and other groups. "This is enough to keep every
addict in Europe supplied for three years, even if another poppy is not
grown in Afghanistan, and leave some over for the Russian market," he said.

Police chiefs are particularly worried about the arrival of a new brand of
heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is 80pc, known as heroin No 4, or
"white heroin".

The UNDCP says recent large seizures of drugs heading into the European
Union across the eastern boundary that stretches from Poland, Germany and
Finland southwards to Turkey have all proved to be white heroin that has
come from Afghanistan and Pakistan via Central Asia.

Police say Albanian criminal gangs have taken over the heroin trade along
this border, muscling in on gangland turf formally controlled by Russians,
Ukrainians, Czechs and Turks.