03 October 2001
Drug Trade Is Primary Income Source for Taliban, DEA Says
(No direct links found between bin Laden and drugs) (730)
By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban exerts significant control over the
cultivation and distribution of the nation's opium poppy crop and the
illicit trade in heroin derived from the plant, said Drug Enforcement
Administration head Asa Hutchinson as he testified October 3 before a
congressional committee on criminal justice and drug policy.
U.S. State Department intelligence information on drug trafficking in
the region indicates that the Taliban has collected at least $40
million through a tax it imposes on the opium poppy crop, William Bach
from the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs told the committee. Congressmen Mark Souder and
Elijah E. Cummings, both committee members, placed the figure at $50
million.
The DEA and State officials said they had no evidence clearly linking
drug profits and suspected terrorist leader Usama bin Laden or his al
Qaeda terrorist network. "While we do not have clear evidence directly
linking drug traffickers and terrorists in Afghanistan, Taliban
responsibility is obvious, particularly given its de facto control
over 90 percent of the country," said Bach.
DEA Administrator Hutchinson also expressed certainty about the link
between drugs and terror in Afghanistan. "The very sanctuary enjoyed
by bin Laden is based on the existence of the Taliban's support for
the drug trade. This connection defines the deadly, symbiotic
relationship between the illicit drug trade and international
terrorism," he said.
Connections between drug traffickers and terrorist movements have
drawn increasing attention from the international law enforcement
community in recent years. Bach said the State Department's concern
about the trend has "heightened exponentially" in the aftermath of the
September 11 attacks on the United States. Bin Laden and the al Qaeda
network are considered the primary suspects in the hijackings of four
U.S. commercial airliners and their subsequent crashes in New York
City, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.
"The degree to which profits from the drug trade are directed to
finance terrorist activities, as well as the extent to which both
types of organizations rely upon the same money laundering and
smuggling facilitators or systems, is of paramount concern to the
DEA," Hutchinson said in a prepared statement.
"We see in these [drug trafficking] groups today a merger of
international organized crime and terror," Hutchinson said. "While DEA
does not specifically target terrorists per se, we can and will target
and track down drug traffickers involved in terrorist acts, wherever
in the world we can find them."
Subcommittee Chairman Mark Souder described the partnerships between
drug traffickers and terrorists as "dark synergies." International
intelligence information suggests that such relationships currently
exist between insurgent groups and drug traffickers in Colombia, Peru
and Burma, he said.
Hutchinson presented the committee with a receipt which he said
demonstrated the institutionalized nature of the taxation imposed by
the Taliban on the opium poppy crop. The DEA administrator also
presented data which showed steady increases in Afghanistan's annual
opium production and the number of hectares planted in opium poppies
through the 1990s.
In 2000, however, the Taliban banned opium poppy cultivation. The
United Nations Drug Control Program declared the effort successful,
and the ban was extended into 2001. Hutchinson questioned whether the
Taliban is committed to the cause of reducing drug trafficking in this
action.
If poppy cultivation has declined, then the availability of heroin in
Southwest Asia would also be expected to decrease, but Hutchinson said
that has not happened. He suggested that the Taliban has stored
previous years' production of opium for future sale and is now
attempting to drive up the regional price of opium through control of
the supply.
Bach reported significant international cooperation to crack down on
Afghanistan's opium production through a diplomatic process he
described as "six-plus-two," involving the United States, Russia and
the six nations bordering Afghanistan -- Iran, Pakistan, China,
Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Bach said all these nations
suffer adverse impacts and increasing addiction among their own
populations as a result of the Afghan drug trade. He gave Iran credit
for its enforcement actions against the transit of drugs across its
territory -- actions that have yielded significant drug seizures.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
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