AFGHAN GENERAL SETS SIGHTS ON DESERT TRAFFICKERS

Guy Dinmore Reports From Zaranj, Centre Of Taliban Drug Smuggling Until Two
Months Ago When The Fundamentalists Fled

The drought that has destroyed the lives of millions of Afghans and
Iranians has been a bonus for the drug barons transporting opium and heroin
to Europe.

The great Helmand river, its tributaries and surrounding marshlands once
threw up a considerable natural obstacle where the borders of Afghanistan,
Iran and Pakistan meet. Today, after three years without a drop of rain,
the once mighty waterways are a sandy wasteland. Across this wilderness,
obscured by frequent dust storms, self-navigating camels, individual
smugglers with backpacks and even four-wheel-drive vehicles ply their
deadly trade.

Drugs and illegal migrants move west, as traders return with fresh supplies
of weapons.

Some 90 per cent of the heroin that reaches the streets of Europe comes
this way, as well as all the opium that supplies the many addicts of Iran.
An important staging-post was, and still is, Zaranj - border town and
capital of Nimruz province, a sparsely populated expanse of desert in the
south-west corner of Afghanistan controlled by Baluchi tribesmen.

Under Mullah Rasool, the Taliban governor of Nimruz until his hasty flight
in mid-November, Zaranj became the key centre for the smuggling community.
Opium and heroin were sold openly along its streets, controlled largely by
five Pashtun druglords, all known as Haji for having made the pilgrimage to
Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. But now the Pashtuns and
their governor have gone, by most accounts to Pakistan, and much to the
relief of the people of Zaranj, the province is again commanded by General
Karim Barahui.

An old soldier, graduate from Kabul's military academy and veteran of the
war against occupying Soviet forces, Gen Barahui could prove to be a
valuable ally in the US-led campaign against remnants of the Taliban regime
and al-Qaeda fighters of Osama bin Laden, as well as the war against drugs.

Although no Baluch were invited to the Bonn conference of Afghan leaders at
the end of last year, nor given any positions in the interim government,
Gen Barahui declares himself a firm supporter of the peace process and is a
leading candidate to take a top position in a future national army.

He also intends to crack down hard on the drug lords. "This was a town for
buying and selling drugs," he told the Financial Times in his heavily
guarded compound. "Now you can't find any in this province. I closed the
shops and there are no more drugs in the town. We will destroy the drug
bandits, and terrorists if we find them, and fight against them to the last
drop of our blood." The general appealed to the west to supply him with the
weapons, equipment and money he needs to stop the drugs trade. "We will end
the drug story," he declared.

It is true that heroin and opium are no longer sold openly in Zaranj's
pitiful bazaar, mostly long lines of shipping containers converted into
store-rooms. But after a few guarded whispers, young men will lead you to
hidden caches, offering to provide up to a tonne of opium in one go. The
trade has simply gone underground, although who is now in control no one
will say. Traders suggest that the "five Hajis" and Mullah Rasool still
have a hand from their hideouts in Pakistan.

"Drugs were sold openly, now in secret, but the price has stayed the same
because supplies are plentiful.

Prices will fall," explained one trader. "The druglords had guerrilla
bands, handheld sat-phones, luxury 4x4s and beautiful women," he recalled.

The prices tell their own story.

One kilogram of opium is offered at 4.5m Iranian rials ($560), little
changed since the events of September 11, while heroin has risen to $1,500
from about $900, possibly reflecting disruptions to supplies from
laboratories deeper in Afghanistan and also in Pakistan.

Across the frontier in Iran, in the border town of Zahedan, young street
dealers in drugs, pornography, alcohol and aphrodisiacs doubt that Gen
Barahui can stop the trafficking. Some are sceptical of his intentions,
remembering him as "Rich Karim" when he was previously governor of Nimruz,
from 1992 with the fall of the communist government until 1995 when the
Taliban drove him back into desert warfare with a safehouse in Zahedan.
Such claims that Gen Barahui or members of his family were somehow involved
in the drugs trade are dismissed by the petty smugglers of Zaranj. "It is
not true that Barahui was a dealer," exclaimed one. "He is a good man. He
can keep the town clean, safe from robbers, and under control. He has
already cleaned the jube (gutters and irrigation ditches)." One smuggler
encountered on the Iranian side of the border told a different story.

According to him, Mullah Rasool was the king-pin, operating out of Zaranj
but maintaining a fleet of 50 vehicles inside Iran. He is also said to have
visited Zahedan for medical treatment and to see members of his family
living there.

The smuggler described how camels addicted to opium would be trained to
cross the desert alone, bearing their cargoes until they reached their next
fix. Another technique was to force camels to swallow up to 5kg of opium in
plastic bags then lead them to slaughter-houses inside Iran.

Although Iran remained hostile to the Taliban and maintained no official
relations, there was active government-approved commerce between the two
sides. The town of Zaranj was wired into Iran's electricity grid, while
further north, Ismail Khan, the Afghan warlord in control of Herat,
discovered stores of Iranian fuel on capturing Shindand airbase from the
Taliban. Iran's anti-narcotics headquarters declined to be interviewed, but
an official denied that Mullah Rasool had any business network inside Iran.
Officials of the United Nations Drugs Control Programme also say they have
no evidence of high-level involvement by Iranian officials in the drugs trade.

Indeed, Mo Mowlam, who last year became the first UK cabinet member to
visit Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, praised the "heroic
efforts" of the Iranian security forces against drugs traffickers, a war
that has cost Iran more than 3,000 lives over the past 20 years.

According to UN statistics, Iran seizes about 250 tonnes of drugs each
year, accounting for 90 per cent of all opium seized worldwide and about 10
per cent of the heroin.

Iran has also allocated more than $100m to fortify its 900km-long border
with Afghanistan, constructing ditches, stretches of barbed-wire and
watch-towers. The government has armed hundreds of village militias to deal
with drug-gangs that kidnap locals and release them only after drugs are
smuggled through. Ahmad Akbari, a commando colonel, described on the border
how the Taliban, even using artillery, would give covering fire to the
traffickers.

Interviews with traders along the border indicate that, despite Iran's
efforts, a short-term wave of drugs could be headed towards Europe. The
Taliban were estimated by some western experts to have around 3,000 tonnes
of opium in stock and much of it appears to have survived the US bombing.
Prices have soared by as much as tenfold over the past two years but
largely as a result of the drought and a ban on planting of opium poppy
seeds that the Taliban imposed in 2000. The year 1999 was a record with the
UNDCP estimating 4,600 tonnes of opium produced, followed by 3,275 tonnes
in 2000 but less than 200 tonnes last year.

Iran had already engaged the Taliban in promoting crop-substitution
programmes and plans to step up its efforts under the new interim
government, with help of the UNDCP.

One harrowing indication of tightening supplies of heroin is the increase
in deaths among addicts using fixes contaminated by poisonous dilutants.
One Iranian newspaper said 60 addicts had recently died over a two-week
period in Tehran alone.

Heroin was being dumped in Iran over the past few years at extremely low
prices, as little as $250 a kilogram, to hook a new generation of addicts
and smugglers.

But Moulavi Abdul Hamid, the senior Sunni Muslim cleric in Iran's Zahedan,
says in the long term Iran needs to concentrate more on alleviating the
underlying poverty that drives young people towards addiction. "There is no
doubt the government is fighting drugs, but they can't eradicate the
problem until they end the economic plight and improve living standards.

It has been shown they did not achieve much." The street dealers of
Zahedan, some with secondary school education, echoed this view. "Life here
is a disaster," said one 22-year-old trader. "Only smuggling is worthwhile.
The rest is useless.

We can't do anything else."