Pubdate: Sat, 01 Dec 2001 Source: Associated Press (Wire) Copyright: 2001 Associated Press Author: Louis Meixler, Associated Press Writer AFGHAN DRUG TRADE SEEN FLOURISHING OYBEK CUSTOMS POST, Uzbekistan - Uzbek border guards stand in the freezing rain, tossing sacks of apples and other luggage from a bus as they search for smuggled Afghan heroin, the drug that has helped fund the Taliban and terror groups. The tough measure is part of regional efforts to choke off the heroin trade, but experts fear the flow will only increase as Taliban control of Afghanistan (news - web sites) collapses. "War and chaos has always been good for traffickers," said Nancy Lubin, president of JNA Assoc. Inc., a Washington-based research and consulting group that focuses on Central Asia. Afghanistan is one of the world's largest opium producers - growing so much that if it were all refined into heroin and sold in Western Europe, it would be worth $100 billion, according to some estimates. Much of the opium filters out through neighboring Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, each of which has received millions of dollars in U.S. aid to beef up border security. The flow of drugs apparently has continued despite the Taliban being vanquished in northern Afghanistan by fighters of the northern alliance. The U.S.-backed northern alliance is itself a major player in the Afghan drug trade and there has been virtually no change in drug smuggling in the recent weeks of war, said Antonella Deledda Titchener, Central Asia representative for the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. The battle for Kunduz, a Taliban stronghold and a key center for storing opium, resulted in an increase in the drug flow as dealers tried to move their stockpiles into Tajikistan, said Roberto Arbitrio of the U.N. drug control office. "Fighting drugs is going to be a vitally important part of the war against terror," said Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies in London. "Money is basically the lifeblood of international terror, and the majority of that money comes from the drug trade." Experts say the Taliban imposed a 10-20 percent tax on the opium trade and earned some $35 million to $75 million that way in 2000. Many experts say the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a group allied with Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida network, is a key player in smuggling drugs into Central Asia. Afghanistan supplied 75 percent of the world's heroin in 1999, according to the U.N. Drug Control Program. But the Taliban cracked down on poppy growing last year and production fell some 95 percent this year. The Taliban apparently ordered the crackdown to improve its image, but stocks in Afghanistan from the bumper 1999 crop were so high that there was almost no impact on the drug smuggling to Tajikistan, Titchener said. There are reports however, that smuggling fell to Pakistan and Iran, traditionally the two main routes for drugs from Afghanistan. And with the Taliban out of power in most of the country, many Afghan farmers are again planting poppies. In Uzbekistan, which shares a long and rugged border with Tajikistan, stopping drug and weapons smuggling has long been a key priority for the government, which regards the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan as its key threat. At the Oybek border post, some 50 miles outside the capital, Tashkent, customs officials Thursday spent almost three hours searching a bus that had just arrived from Tajikistan. Customs agents first took most of the luggage off the bus and tossed it on the pavement in the pouring rain. Then Jackie, a German shepherd sniffer dog, ran into the cargo hold to sniff luggage and the sides of the bus. Customs agents in green paramilitary uniforms checked the inside of the bus while border troops stood guard outside. Each piece of luggage was then put through an X-ray machine that checked for weapons and drugs. Powdered drugs are usually more dense than their containers. At one point, a customs agent pulled a piece of luggage aside when he saw that it held a large container with a substance that showed up as almost black on the X-ray machine. An agent pulled open the bag to find a jar of beef in a thick brown sauce. "We try and be very thorough," said Abdunabi Umarov, the head of the customs post. "We have good equipment and that helps." U.S. aid has helped beef up the post's equipment. In 1999, the post received a fiber optic scope to use in searching fuel tanks, power saws to cut open containers and mirrors to look under cars. In summer, the post received a heroin testing kit. Drug smuggling at Oybek is down, Umarov said, with only four drug seizures this year, compared to 13 last year. But, he added: "Maybe they have just found new routes." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth