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."
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