U.S. DRUG OFFICIALS FEAR SURGE IN AFGHAN OPIUM

U.S. officials are exploring ways to prevent a surge in opium cultivation
in Afghanistan, once the world's leading producer, now that the Taliban's
control is crumbling.

The challenge is persuading the factions likely to govern to fight opium
production and trafficking, when these groups in the past have shown little
inclination to do that.

U.S. counternarcotics officials want to make drug-fighting a condition for
receiving international humanitarian aid. They expect some of the
assistance will include programs to encourage Afghan farmers to give up
opium, the raw material for heroin, in favor of wheat and other legal crops.

Representatives of U.S. anti-drug agencies have met to begin developing a
counterdrug plan. With efforts under way to form a new multiethnic
government in Afghanistan, the opium issue is attracting the attention of
leading Bush administration officials.

U.S. policy-makers had limited interest in it before the September 11
attacks. Afghan opium is sold mostly in Europe and Asia. It accounts for
only a tiny fraction of the heroin sold in the United States, most of which
is from Latin America.

After September 11, Afghan opium was seen in a new light: as an important
moneymaker for the Taliban militia that harbored Osama bin Laden, the
suspected mastermind of the attacks.

Afghan opium production surged after the Taliban took control of most of
the country in 1996 and reached a peak of 4,030 U.S. tons last year,
according to State Department statistics. That accounted for 72 percent of
the world market.

Citing Islamic principles, the Taliban banned opium, virtually eliminating
it from its territory this year. U.S. officials suspect the Taliban was
trying to reduce the opium supply to boost the price of existing stockpiles.

"The farmers are poor people, and they need money, and the opium crop is a
profitable crop for them," said Mohammed Amirkhizi, an official of the U.N.
Drug Control Program in Vienna, Austria.

"If the conditions remain in a way that no one is enforcing the
noncultivation of illicit drugs in Afghanistan, then the farmers will go
back to cultivating," he said.

Asa Hutchinson, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said it is
too early to tell how cooperative the Northern Alliance will be in the future.

Mr. Hutchinson said the DEA has been working with Afghanistan's neighbors,
including Pakistan, to help block the movement of Afghan opium through
their territory.