Pubdate: Tue, 02 Oct 2001
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Authors: Alan Cullison and James M Dorsey, Staff Reporters of THE WALL 
STREET JOURNAL

IN TARGETING TERRORISTS' DRUG MONEY, U.S. PUTS ITSELF IN AN AWKWARD SITUATION

Analysts Say Taliban's Foes -- Bush's Likely Allies -- Are Using Opium and 
Other Drugs for Funds as Well

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- In its assault on terrorism, the U.S. may seek to 
choke off profits from the Central Asian drug trade that are used to buy 
arms and explosives. But some important potential allies in Washington's 
struggle with Afghanistan are also believed to be reaping the rewards of 
the nation's burgeoning heroin trade.

Nowhere is the problem clearer than along Afghanistan's northern border 
with Tajikistan, a sworn ally in President Bush's antiterrorist efforts -- 
and a major conduit for heroin and opium on its way to consumers in Europe.

United Nations officials say as much as half of Afghanistan's opium and 
heroin flows across the 800-mile border with Tajikistan before finding its 
way to Russia and points west. For most of the past five years, the 
narcotics have come from areas almost entirely controlled by the Northern 
Alliance, the main rival of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, say 
drug-enforcement officials. An aggressive Taliban offensive that has driven 
Northern Alliance forces out of some border regions hasn't affected the 
trade much.

The trade creates an awkward situation for the U.S., which hopes to enlist 
the help of the Northern Alliance fighters, who know the dizzying mountains 
and deserts of Afghanistan and could help in the effort to track down Osama 
bin Laden, Washington's chief suspect in last month's terrorist attacks in 
the U.S. Mr. Bush has demanded that the Taliban, who claim to know Mr. bin 
Laden's whereabouts, turn him over.

The Taliban, invoking Islam, has largely stamped out opium production in 
most of Afghanistan. Northern Alliance leaders, for their part, deny any 
connection to drug trafficking but concede that it does take place on their 
territory.

"All the leaders on both sides in Afghanistan are fed by drugs," says 
Muzaffar Olimov, director of the Center for Oriental Studies, a Dushanbe 
think tank. "It is of course not open or official, and nobody confirms it. 
But people can't buy all the weapons that they have with gems alone."

U.N. officials hesitate to guess which side has been making more from the 
drug trade in Afghanistan, which produces about 75% of the world's heroin. 
But they do think the anticipated U.S. retaliation against terrorists in 
Afghanistan, and perhaps the Taliban government itself, has sparked 
selling. The officials say Afghan drug dealers, expecting a Western strike, 
appear to be selling off their narcotic stockpiles for cash.

Meanwhile, across the Stans and the Caspian Sea, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, 
some pray for a speedy U.S. attack on Afghanistan. "It's good for 
business," says Muhammed, standing in a garage full of cannabis, a pistol 
tucked in his belt. He is just back from harvesting this year's cannabis 
crop. "It'll drive up hashish prices," he explains.

Muhammed assures a prospective client that transport of 2,500 kilograms 
(5,500 pounds) to Amsterdam from the Bekaa -- controlled by Syrian troops 
as well as Syrian- and Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim Hezbollah fighters -- 
can be arranged. Like most farmers in this remote region, he has returned 
to his time-honored crop for the first time in almost a decade. The revival 
of Lebanon's drug trade symbolizes the failure of Western attempts to 
persuade farmers to switch from high-value cannabis and poppy seeds to 
unprofitable potatoes and vegetables.

There is a standard transport route here as well. The Bekaa's farmers say 
an Istanbul-based company moves the hashish from eastern Lebanon to 
Istanbul aboard Turkish trucks. In Istanbul, the hashish is switched to 
German-made trucks, with German license plates, headed for Bologna, in 
Italy. "Transportation is no issue," says Muhammed. "I spoke to our 
transporters in Turkey this morning. The government isn't a problem either. 
We can deal with them."

Back in Central Asia, Russian and Tajik border troops have pounced on more 
than three tons of pure heroin in the past few months -- about three times 
the amount they had discovered by this time last year. The heroin, they 
say, is often high-quality, neatly tied in one-kilogram loaves and stamped 
with trademarks by its manufacturers, like care packages with designer 
labels. Any serious cleanup, however, could send tremors through 
Tajikistan, which would be a valuable jumping-off point for military 
operations against the Taliban but is itself badly addicted to the drug trade.

Drug money, in fact, has proved a lubricant for a peace agreement signed in 
1997 that ended Tajikistan's civil war, analysts say. To persuade the 
country's competing warlords to lay down their arms, military leaders and 
their followers were given posts in the government. Now former warlords and 
their troops control portions of the Tajik border, regional police and 
customs. Says a Western diplomat: "Government people are up to their 
eyeballs in the drug business."

Officials say Russian police last year seized one shipment of heroin that 
was sent to Moscow in a diplomatic pouch. And Tajikistan was forced to 
recall its ambassador from Kazakstan last year after police in Almaty 
searched his car and a garage and found 62 kilograms of heroin and $54,000 
in cash. The ambassador blamed the incident on his trade representative, 
who he said had borrowed the car.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom