How Al-Qaeda Is Tapping Into The Opium Trade To Finance Violence And Destabilize Afghanistan Coalition forces on the trail of Osama bin Laden and the leaders of the Taliban in late 2001 didn't worry much about elderly, pious-looking men like Haji Juma Khan. A towering tribesman from the Baluchistan desert near Pakistan, Khan was picked up that December near Kandahar and taken into U.S. custody. Though known to U.S. and Afghan officials as a drug trafficker, he seemed an insignificant catch. "At the time, the Americans were only interested in catching bin Laden and [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar," says a European counterterrorism expert in Kabul. "Juma Khan walked." [continues 723 words]
The U.S. Military May Be Turning A Blind Eye To Afghanistan's Drug Trade, Which Fills The Coffers Of Both Enemies And Allies While searching for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, U.S. special forces in Afghanistan routinely come across something they're not looking for: evidence of a thriving Afghan drug trade. But they're not doing anything about it, antinarcotics experts tell TIME. Several Kabul diplomats familiar with U.S. military operations say that while carrying out searches in eastern and southern Afghanistan - opium-growing areas that are also Taliban strongholds [continues 225 words]
Trained As A Drug-Gang Enforcer, Carlos Castano Is Decimating Colombia's Rebels With His Bloody In-your-face Tactics Time's Tim Mcgirk Visits Him Mid-battle "No, it's not like the days of Che Guevara, where you sat around a campfire in the jungle playing the guitar," says Carlos Castano, laughing. He is probably the most feared - and elusive - man in Colombia. "Even in the jungle, I have the Internet and mobile phones. Why, the other night I watched a Kevin Costner movie, Message in a Bottle, on satellite TV." Since 1996 Castano has seized control of hundreds of small private armies recruited by Colombia's druglords, industrialists and owners of the big cattle ranches and emerald mines. [continues 1434 words]
Colombia's jungles are teeming with rich, armed, drug-dealing rebels. Can the U.S. really beat them? As U.S. Antidrug Chief General Barry McCaffery jetted into a Colombian military base last week, he saw the makings of a nightmare outside his window. "It was astonishing," the former Army general told TIME. "In some southern districts of Colombia, about a third of the land is under coca cultivation." From the air, it seemed that every jungle clearing was inlaid with coca bushes. The view impressed upon McCaffery that despite the loss of five U.S. servicemen--whose reconnaissance aircraft slammed into a jungle mountain hidden by clouds days before his visit--the Clinton Administration's war against Colombian drug cartels has to be raised another notch. [continues 564 words]
