Pubdate: Sun, 23 May 2004 Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN) Copyright: 2004 St. Paul Pioneer Press Contact: http://www.pioneerplanet.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/379 Author: By Mark Mcdonald, Knight Ridder Foreign Service AFGHAN HEROIN THREATENS NEIGHBORS DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- Heroin producers in Afghanistan, some of the principal financiers of al-Qaida and other terrorists, have never before been so brazen or so wealthy. With a bumper crop of opium poppies under cultivation, Afghan narco-barons have begun stamping their brand names on the 2.2-pound bags of heroin they smuggle out of Central Asia to buyers in Moscow, Amsterdam, London and New York. Sacks of high-quality Afghan heroin seized in April in Tajikistan carried the trademarks "Super Power" and "555." Some of the sacks, which were hidden inside foil-lined containers of instant cappuccino mix, even included the addresses of the labs in Afghanistan where the heroin had been refined. A Western-led campaign against opium-growing and heroin laboratories has been a wholesale failure, and drug-control experts say the number of processing facilities in Afghanistan has exploded over the last year. The trade and huge sums of money involved threaten to undermine vulnerable bordering states such as Tajikistan. "There's absolutely no threat to the labs inside Afghanistan," said Maj. Avaz Yuldashov of the Tajikistan Drug Control Agency. "Our intelligence shows there are 400 labs making heroin there, and 80 of them are situated right along our border. Some of them even work outside, in the open air." Some 200,000 acres of opium poppies have been planted in Afghanistan - opium serves as the raw material of heroin - and the country's late-summer harvest will produce three-fourths of the world's heroin. That will mean further billions for growers, smugglers, corrupt officials and Afghan warlords. It's also likely to mean a windfall of tithes to al-Qaida and its Islamist brethren now said to be regrouping in the mountains of Central Asia. "Drug trafficking from Afghanistan is the main source of support for international terrorism now," Yuldashov said. "That's quite clear." But in recent congressional testimony about heroin flow out of Afghanistan, Drug Enforcement Administration head Karen Tandy spoke only of "potential links" and "possible relationships" between Afghan traffickers and terrorists. Drug agents in Central Asia say they're baffled by Tandy's hedging. "The connection is absolutely obvious to us," said Col. Alexander Kondratiyev, a senior Russian officer who has served with border guards in Tajikistan for nearly a decade. "Drugs, weapons, ammunition, terrorism, more drugs, more terrorism -- it's a closed circle." That circle has profound and ominous implications for the U.S.-led fight against international terrorism. Regional diplomats, aid workers and law-enforcement officials fear that the expanding drug trade will destabilize one of the "stans," the five former Soviet republics that gained independence after the U.S.S.R. collapsed. They worry about the emergence of a Central Asian narco-state, a country dominated by the drug economy and effectively controlled by a heroin mafia with roots in Afghanistan and ties to al-Qaida and regional Islamists. "We have a deep responsibility to keep these Central Asian republics from becoming failed states," said a Western diplomat in Dushanbe who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Look what happened in Afghanistan. It was a failed state -- and it became a nest for terrorists. "We have to stop that same thing from happening here. For our own security, we can't afford it." At particular risk is Tajikistan, a desperately poor, predominantly Muslim nation of 7 million. Tajikistan produces almost no opium or heroin of its own, but it has become a natural pathway for traffickers due to its 900-mile border with Afghanistan. Also, enough heroin has been "falling off the trucks" in Tajikistan that it now has galloping rates of heroin addiction, drug crime and HIV infection. The Tajik Drug Control Agency -- outmanned, outgunned and poorly equipped -- said it managed to seize nearly 6 tons of heroin from traffickers last year. Senior commanders estimate they catch about 20 percent of the traffic. Some analysts think it's probably about half that much. Tajikistan, isolated and landlocked, has almost no industrial economy other than a state-controlled aluminum smelter. Foreign investment is minuscule; not a single American firm is operating in the country. The national budget is barely $300 million a year, a pittance compared with the size of the drug economy. The heroin trade alone, Yuldashov said, is 10 times bigger. That kind of disparity leaves many Tajiks vulnerable to corruption and compromise by wealthy drug mafiosi, especially when the average salary is $10 a month and 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. A single trip as a drug courier can feed a Tajik family for a month. Another worrisome development is in the offing for Tajikistan: Next month, along the Afghan border, Russia will begin withdrawing 2,200 border-control officers who've been stationed here since the Soviet era. Their departure and the loss of Russian funding could further undermine Tajikistan's ability to defend itself from Afghan drug traffickers. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake