HEROIN BACKS UP THE TALIBAN HORROR

The Hardline Religious Group Supports Its Activities By Dealing In Hard Drugs

In horrors reminiscent of the Roman coliseum, Kabul Sports Stadium packs in
capacity crowds of 30,000 to witness Taliban justice. Adulterers are
flogged, murderers killed, and thieves have their right hand and left foot
amputated. Taliban soldiers gleefully parade around the stadium holding up
severed limbs.

The Taliban movement originated in the dismal Pakistani refugee camps
during the Afghan-Soviet conflict, and grew during the Afghan Civil war
between rival political factions following the Soviet departure. The
Taliban promised to bring peace to an Afghan population weary of 16 years
of warfare. Instead, they turned on the Afghan population.'The scourge of
Afghan heroin has hit Pakistan the hardest. Addiction rates soared from
less than 20,000 in 1980 to over 2,000,000 today, making it the world's
largest heroin addict population.'

Since Sept. 27, 1996, when Taliban forces overran Kabul, a reign of terror
has ruled the capital and other Afghan cities. Taliban leaders imposed
their highly restrictive version of Sharia, strict Islamic law, including
numerous rules not sanctioned by the Koran. Playing music, singing
non-religious songs, or reading anything published outside of Afghanistan
is illegal. So is flying a kite because it might interrupt prayers.

The Taliban forbid women to work or attend school and enforce purdah,
mandatory veiling with a burqa, a full-length garment with a small woven
screen over the eyes. Men are required to grow beards and wear skullcaps or
turbans. Thugs, sanctioned by the Ministry for Promoting Virtue and
Preventing Vice, prowl the streets looking for prey.

"The Taliban have their religious police," says an official with the US
State Department's Human Rights Division. "They've been know to beat some
women if their ankles are showing or if they are walking with a male who is
not a close relative." Men and boys wielding car antennas, electrical cord,
or wooden clubs often do the beatings on the spot.

While the Taliban administer their brand of religious terrorism over the
Afghan population, they quietly support their movement by dealing in drugs.
US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) reports show that Afghan opium production
dropped to 415 metric tonnes in 1990, but in 1997, under Taliban rule, over
2800 metric tonnes were cultivated. By last year, Afghanistan produced a
staggering 3,656 metric tonnes, 70 percent of the world's opium crop.

Despite their claim to a strict Islamic state, the Taliban chose to ignore
the prohibition on drugs because they were directly profiting from it.
According to the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs (INL), the Taliban impose a tax of 10 to 20 percent upon people who
grow, process, transport, or sell opiates, morphine base, and heroin.

The Taliban make money on each step, from opium fields to street sales,
reaping US$40 to US$50 million a year in revenues. And if the Taliban is
directly involved in the drug trade, as alleged in reports cited by the UN
Committee of Experts on Resolution 1933, its profits may be far greater.

Seeking international recognition from the UN, as well as several hundred
million dollars in additional aid, the Taliban placed a ban on the growing
of opium in July last year. As a result, the official calculation of the
Afghan opium crop for this year fell to only 74 metric tonnes.

In spite of the reduction in opium cultivation, the flow of drugs out of
Afghanistan remained the same, and even increased in the Central Asian
Republics. The UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) estimates that Afghanistan
might have stockpiled as much as 60 percent of its opium production each
year since 1996. As a result, their ban on opium is little more than a
public relations and marketing ploy.

By warehousing opium, the Taliban has driven up the price. According to the
DEA, before the July prohibition last year, a kilo of Afghan opium was
US$44. A few months later, the price jumped to US$350 to US$400 a kilo. The
cost of heroin also increased at similar levels from US$579 a kilo in July
last year to US$4564 this year. Much of the profits go straight into
Taliban coffers. Following the terrorist attacks on the US, Afghan drug
dealers, anticipating reprisals that would disrupt processing and
distribution channels, reduced the price of opium, creating a surplus of
cheap drugs.

Heroin labs, scattered along the borders of Pakistan and the central Asian
republics, are doing a booming business, in spite of the Taliban claims
that they've been destroyed. In 1998, virtually all of the heroin labs in
Pakistan moved into Afghanistan where the Taliban protected them. Large
processing labs are also located in southern Afghanistan, near the Taliban
headquarters at Kandahar. The provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, both
Taliban strongholds, are two primary areas for the cultivation of opium
poppy Afghanistan does not produce anhydride and other chemicals used in
the processing of heroin. These chemicals, often labeled as cleaning agents
or hidden inside consumer products, are shipped in from China, India,
Pakistan, and the Central Asian Republics.

The steady seizure of drug-related chemicals destined for Afghanistan since
the ban on opium cultivation indicates Afghan labs are still producing heroin.

Several clues confirm that heroin production has not been adversely
effected. Seizures of heroin, morphine base, and opium along the transit
routes of Pakistan, Iran, and the central Asian republics have not decreased.

"In spite of the ban, Afghanistan's neighbors have seen record seizures,"
notes a US INL official.

Furthermore, according to the UN report, Global Illicit Drug Trends for
2001, the greatest increases in seizures over the last few years were
reported by the Central Asian countries. In Tajikistan alone, heroin
seizures rose from 60kg in 1997, to 271kg in 1998, to 709kg in 1999, to 1.9
metric tonnes last year. Seizures in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan,
and Kazakhstan have also increased.

"The Kazakhstanis recognize they have a problem," notes a US State
Department official. "They are starting to get alarmed by the number of
addicts they have and by the increase in incidents of HIV. Ninety percent
of all people with HIV in Kazakhstan are intravenous drug users."

Iran, a major transit route for drug smugglers, has also been plagued by
Afghan heroin. By 1999, Iran accounted for 47 percent of the world's heroin
and morphine seizures, an increase of over 100 percent from the pre-Taliban
era. Despite increased vigilance on the part of authorities, a growing
number of Iranian youth are becoming addicted to heroin.

The scourge of Afghan heroin has hit Pakistan the hardest. Addiction rates
soared from less than 20,000 in 1980 to over 2,000,000 today, making it the
world's largest heroin addict population, both per capita and in absolute
numbers. "We're still seeing seizures of heroin in Pakistan that is of
Afghan origin," notes a US official with INL. "The actual consumption in
the area is by people who are already poor and exploited."

Ironically, Pakistan, the primary country responsible for bringing the
Taliban to power, has been paid back by the corruption of their officials,
addiction of their citizens, and the economic devastation brought on by
heroin and AIDS.

United Arab Emirates, Oman, Syria, Egypt, and other Islamic countries have
also suffered from an increased flow of Afghan heroin since the Taliban
seized control. In fact, the Taliban have the distinction of being the
single largest horde of drug dealers afflicting the Islamic world. In
addition to opiates, they also deal in marijuana and hashish, which they
push on their Muslim neighbors.

Heroin leaves Afghanistan by a variety of different routes. UN sources
claim that up to 65 percent of all Afghan opium and heroin is transported
through the central Asian republics to the Russian Federation, Baltic
States, Belarus, and the Ukraine on their way to lucrative European markets.

According to the DEA, about 80 percent of the heroin in Europe is of Afghan
origin.

Russian criminal organizations are heavily involved in the drug trade and
the sale of armaments stolen from Soviet military arsenals. They are
reputed to have direct ties with the Taliban government, as well as
al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups interested in obtaining weapons,
chemical and biological materials, and nuclear components

Some politicians and religious leaders find a way to justify any activity,
no matter how illegal, by waving the flag of nationalism or invoking the
name of God. So it is with the Taliban, responsible for the misery of
millions of Muslims who languish in the despair of drug addiction. Their
motto might very well be, "Heroin for our Muslim brothers, profits for us."