Afghans Say U.S.-Backed Warlords Worse Than Taliban Along a potholed road in eastern Afghanistan, Mohammed Jan points through a cloud of dust at a line of mansions that seem out of place in such poverty-stricken surroundings. "This is where the new, beautiful houses begin. They belong to the commanders. Their money is from drugs, from smuggling. They will never be caught. Their soldiers are working with the Americans," says Jan, himself a small-time opium grower. Nearly two years after the collapse of Taliban rule, ordinary Afghans like Jan say they are losing faith in the United States and its coalition partners. [continues 838 words]
Growers Troubled By Government's Failure To Provide Aid JALALABAD, Afghanistan - When the sun peeks over the horizon and a cold, November fog covers the fields, Afghanistan's poppy growers get to work. This is planting season in the country that last year regained the title of world's largest producer of opium. But that distinction, however dubious, may be short-lived. Some farmers this year are not planting poppies, the source of the opium used to make heroin. They say they fear jail because of a new government ban on poppy growing - and their fear could be a first sign that Afghans outside the capital, Kabul, are following the writ of law laid down by President Hamid Karzai. [continues 740 words]
Planting Season Tests Fight Against Opium Karzai Puts Poppy Farmers On Notice JALALABAD, Afghanistan When the sun peeks over the horizon and a cold, November fog covers the fields, Afghanistan's poppy growers get to work. This is planting season in the country that last year regained the title of world's largest producer of opium. But that distinction, however dubious, may be short-lived. Some farmers this year are not planting poppies, the source of the opium used to make heroin. They say they fear jail because of a new government ban on poppy growing. [continues 461 words]
JALALABAD, Afghanistan - When the sun peeks over the horizon and a cold, November fog covers the fields, Afghanistan's poppy growers get to work. This is planting season in the country that last year regained the title of world's largest producer of opium. But that distinction, however dubious, may be short-lived. Some farmers this year are not planting poppies, the source of the opium used to make heroin. They say they fear jail because of a new government ban on poppy growing - and their fear could be a first sign that Afghans outside the capital, Kabul, are following the writ of law laid down by Prime Minister Hamid Karzai. [continues 755 words]
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A giant white banner strung across a war-ruined building urged the Islamic faithful Wednesday to shun drug use and production - a message hammered home during a ceremony to mark international day against drug abuse and trafficking. "Will you fight against drugs?" newly elected President Hamid Karzai asked a group of young girls, their heads covered in bright red scarves. "Yes," they shouted. Shouts of support also came from rows of young boys, all wearing white shirts with the slogan, "Sports against drugs," gathered for the ceremony at Kabul University to mark International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. [continues 711 words]
GHANI KHIEL, Afghanistan -- Soldiers stormed Afghanistan's biggest drug market, seizing more than 6 tons of opium. The raid this week showed the interim government's resolve to wipe out the lucrative opium trade that resumed with the fall of the Taliban. But shopkeepers said the soldiers appeared more like a thieving party, ripping the watches off the wrists of store owners, pulling money from their pockets and taking everything in the shops -- as well as the opium. "They weren't interested in destroying our opium. They took our opium to sell," said Javed Khan, a store owner. [continues 360 words]
GHANI KHIEL, Afghanistan - Soldiers stormed in by the hundreds, smashed the bolted wooden doors of ramshackle shops and seized more than six tons of opium at Afghanistan's biggest drug market. The raid this week was the largest show of the interim government's resolve to wipe out the lucrative opium trade that resumed with the fall of the Taliban. But it went badly wrong. The soldiers appeared more like a thieving party, ripping the watches off the wrists of store owners, pulling money from their pockets and taking everything in the shops - as well as the opium, shopkeepers said. [continues 694 words]
GHANI KHIEL, Afghanistan--Soldiers stormed in by the hundreds, smashed the bolted wooden doors of ramshackle shops and seized more than six tons of opium at Afghanistan's biggest drug market. The raid this week was the largest show of the interim government's resolve to wipe out the lucrative opium trade that resumed with the fall of the Taliban. But it went badly wrong. The soldiers appeared more like a thieving party, ripping the watches off the wrists of store owners, pulling money from their pockets and taking everything in the shops--as well as the opium, shopkeepers said. [continues 439 words]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A year after a Taliban ban virtually wiped out opium production in Afghanistan, Afghan farmers are defying the order and preparing their fields for planting poppies, a U.N. official said Wednesday. That could signal a major increase next year in the availability of heroin and other opium-based narcotics in markets in the United States and Western Europe. Bernard Frahi, the U.N. Drug Control Program representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, said reports from major poppy-growing areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan indicate fields have been tilled in a manner that suggests farmers will be planting poppies. [continues 554 words]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - In its first high-level meeting with Afghanistan's ruling militia, the Bush administration told the Taliban on Thursday that they must stop supporting terrorists before any serious progress can be made in relations with the United States. Osama bin Laden, the alleged terrorist mastermind who has been living in Afghanistan under Taliban protection since 1996, was a main focus of the discussion in neighboring Pakistan. After meeting with two Taliban representatives for slightly more than an hour, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina B. Rocca said Washington wants bin Laden extradited on terrorism charges, but that "Osama is not the be all and the end all. He is only one problem and he continues to be a threat." [continues 328 words]
Inspectors from skeptical foreign governments began crisscrossing Afghanistan on Wednesday to check claims that the world's main producer of opium, the sticky sap used to make heroin, has wiped out the crop in less than a year. Fields of green poppy pods, a major cash crop in the war- and drought-stricken country, were banned in July by the ruling Taliban militia's hardline leader, the reclusive Mullah Mohammed Omar. The United Nations Drug Control Program sent its own inspectors and concluded in March that the plants were gone. But countries battling heroin addiction are doubtful, and on Wednesday they sent a team of 15 investigators, including two Americans, to see for themselves. [continues 395 words]
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Associated Press) -- U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has virtually wiped out opium production in Afghanistan -- once the world's largest producer -- since banning poppy cultivation in July. A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation's largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year. "We are not just guessing. We have seen the proof in the fields,'' said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He laid out photographs of vast tracts of land cultivated with wheat alongside pictures of the same fields taken a year earlier -- a sea of blood-red poppies. [continues 1024 words]
JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- U.N. drug-control officers said the Taliban religious militia has virtually wiped out opium production in Afghanistan - -- once the world's largest producer -- since banning poppy cultivation in July. A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation's largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year. "We are not just guessing. We have seen the proof in the fields," said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. [continues 618 words]
With Afghanistan-No Drugs JALALABAD, AFGHANISTAN Dirt-poor farmers, unable to pay their debts because of a Taliban ban on growing the flower that produces opium, are trading their young daughters to clear their debts, U.N. and Taliban officials say. "I just talked to a farmer who said: 'I gave my small daughter to the one I got a loan from,"' said Amir Mohammed Haqqani, the Taliban's chief anti-narcotics man in Nangarhar province, which was the second-largest opium-producing region last year. [continues 289 words]
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AP) - U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has virtually wiped out opium production in Afghanistan - once the world's largest producer - since banning poppy cultivation in July. A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation's largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year. ``We are not just guessing. We have seen the proof in the fields,'' said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He laid out photographs of vast tracts of land cultivated with wheat alongside pictures of the same fields taken a year earlier - a sea of blood-red poppies. [continues 999 words]
Taliban Leaders Cracking Down On Flowers Used To Make Heroin KHOGIANI, Pakistan -- Zulmai Khan has planted wheat instead of poppies this year, and expects his income to plunge from $10,000 to $400. For Khan, it was switch or go to jail. Like many other Afghan farmers, he finds himself at the sharp end of an edict from the country's Taliban rulers, who have decreed it's not Islamic to farm poppies for heroin production. "Of course it's because we are afraid," Khan said angrily of his decision to comply. "That is the only reason. It wasn't against Islam before, so how can it be against Islam now?" [continues 632 words]
KHOGIANI, Pakistan -- Zulmai Khan has planted wheat instead of poppies this year, and expects his income to plunge from $10,000 to $400. =46or Khan, it was switch or go to jail. Like many other Afghan farmers, he finds himself at the sharp end of an edict from the country's Taliban rulers, who have decreed it's not Islamic to farm poppies for heroin production. "Of course it's because we are afraid," Khan said angrily of his decision to comply. "That is the only reason. It wasn't against Islam before, so how can it be against Islam now? [continues 647 words]
KHOGIANI, Afghanistan -- Zulmai Khan has planted wheat instead of poppies this year, and expects his income to plunge from $10,000 to $400. For Khan, it was switch or go to jail. Like many other Afghan farmers, he finds himself at the sharp end of an edict from the country's Taliban rulers, who have decreed it's not Islamic to farm poppies for heroin production. "Of course it's because we are afraid," Khan said angrily of his decision to comply. "That is the only reason. It wasn't against Islam before, so how can it be against Islam now?" [continues 522 words]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Afghanistan is growing a record amount of drugs and that's bad news for Pakistan and the world, warned Pakistan's Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider on Wednesday. But isolating Afghanistan's ruling Taliban army is not the answer, he told a U.N.-sponsored press conference where a 1999 International Narcotics Control Board report was released. The report, which takes a global look at drug production, said Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium. Last year it produced 4,600 tons, according to U.N. statistics. [continues 189 words]
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) Pakistan wants the United States to return an air force officer arrested in New York City on charges of heroin trafficking, news reports said today. Pakistan Air force squadron leader Farooq Ahmed Khan was arrested last week allegedly while trying to sell 4 1/2 pounds of heroin. Since then, police in Pakistan have arrested a second air force squadron leader, Qazim Bhatti, who allegedly was working with Khan to use the air force, its aircraft and relative immunity, to move heroin outside the country. [continues 195 words]
