Pubdate: Thu, 20 Apr 2006
Source: Las Vegas Sun (NV)
Copyright: 2006 Las Vegas Sun, Inc
Contact:  http://www.lasvegassun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/234
Author: Matthew Pennington,  Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

PAKISTAN STRUGGLES TO STOP AFGHAN HEROIN

QUETTA, Pakistan -  A small airplane with a heat-seeing camera flies 
over moonlit, craggy desert along the Pakistan-Afghan frontier, 
circling suspicious convoys of vehicles that appear with amazing 
clarity on a monochrome screen.

In an effort to improve border security and stanch the flow of heroin 
trafficked from top world producer Afghanistan, the U.S. has supplied 
Pakistan with 10 Huey helicopters and three Cessna Caravan planes 
with high-tech surveillance equipment.

But a chronic shortage of dedicated ground forces to pounce on 
smugglers limits their impact. And rampant corruption that a former 
Afghan trafficker says infects security forces and officials on both 
sides of the border helps fuel the booming narcotics trade to 
Pakistan, across Europe and the United States.

The war on drugs plays second fiddle to the war on terror along 
Pakistan's border and draws little foreign funding, though this is a 
key route for narcotics coming from Afghanistan, which grew enough 
opium last year to refine about 450 tons of heroin.

While tens of thousands of Pakistani troops are deployed against 
al-Qaida-linked militants and rebellious tribesmen, the 
Anti-Narcotics Force has just 300 personnel in southwestern 
Baluchistan province, a barren region the size of Germany. Much of 
Afghanistan's heroin is spirited out in nighttime caravans of SUVs 
through this desert, headed south for Pakistan's Arabian Sea coast or 
west into Iran, toward Turkey and Europe.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said the government's 
paramilitary forces were focused on security rather than narcotics. 
"We just don't have enough forces right now," he told The Associated 
Press. "Our hands are full."

To improve mobility across the vast terrain, the U.S. State 
Department funded Pakistan's first "night-capable" air squadron. It 
started operating in late 2004, piloted and maintained mostly by 
Pakistanis with support from American contractors.

Since then, the 50th Aviation Squadron has often been drawn into 
service ferrying forces and casualties during counterterrorism 
operations, and until recently, against tribal renegades. It also 
helped relief efforts during October's earthquake in northern Pakistan.

Geoffrey Krassy, a State Department senior aviation adviser, said the 
squadron was now focusing on its counternarcotics mandate: surveying 
poppy fields, supporting drug busts and monitoring the border.

The AP joined a recent surveillance mission along Pakistan's frontier 
with the southern Afghan province of Kandahar.

The pilots - one Pakistani, one American instructor - took off using 
night-vision goggles. The infrared camera on the underbelly of the 
unarmed Cessna zeroed in on convoys threading along dirt tracks and 
dry river beds, offering clues - if not proof - to whether they are 
regular long-haul trucks or more suspicious, faster vehicles carrying 
illegal cargo.

"There's actually a couple of cars down there that might be (drug) 
smugglers, and that could be the scout car out ahead," Krassy said, 
spotting lights glowing in the desert. "There aren't so many routes 
to take, so if we can identify a trafficker, forces can be sent to 
block the way."

That, at least, is the hope, but Pakistan lacks the capacity to act 
on real-time tip-offs from such flights. Also, Western diplomats say 
bickering neighbors Pakistan and Afghanistan share little 
intelligence on heroin moving through the frontier. Relations have 
worsened over Afghan allegations that Taliban militants launch 
cross-border attacks from Pakistan.

Yet graft is likely the biggest obstacle to battling traffickers.

A State Department narcotics control strategy report published in 
March said Pakistan reported heroin and opium seizures by its various 
security forces totaling more than 30 tons in 2005. But low 
government salaries and endemic graft in Pakistan meant 
"narcotics-related corruption is likely to be associated with the 
movement of large quantities of narcotics."

An Afghan whose father ran a heroin laboratory in the southern Afghan 
province of Helmand told AP it was customary for traffickers to bribe 
officials and security forces on both sides of the border.

He said bribes were usually $250-$415 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of 
heroin, which is sold to dealers inside Pakistan at $3,335 per kilo. 
Traffickers paid off local administrators, police, border patrols, 
customs officials and tribal chiefs to smooth the way, said the 
Afghan, an educated man in his late 20s who sought anonymity for his 
own safety.

"You give bribes from the small fish, right up to the big sharks," 
said the Afghan, who worked in his father's lab and joined armed drug 
smuggling convoys. "Just give the bribes and you can do what you want."

Still, he recalled two incidents in Pakistan and Iran where bribes 
were paid yet a trafficking group was caught with large heroin 
stashes after a gunbattle. The haul was handed over to corrupt 
officials who freed the smugglers.

In one case in 2003, Pakistani security forces seized 535 pounds of 
heroin after a gunbattle near Chagai in Baluchistan. The traffickers 
were released under a deal with authorities, the Afghan said.

Chagai top administrator Qamar Masood said administrative changes in 
the area in 2004 left no record of the alleged incident.

Associated Press writer Naseer Kakar contributed to this report.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman