Taliban Deny Drug Links With Detainees in Korea

By Emal Pashtunyar

Special to Korea Times

KABUL ― Taliban militants in Afghanistan have denied they are involved in smuggling chemicals from Korea to Afghanistan for use in making heroin.

Korean police Friday claimed they had arrested two Afghans and some South Asian citizens and seized around 12 tons of acetic anhydride from their possession during a raid.

The Afghan citizens, police claimed, have admitted links to the Taliban in Afghanistan and said the chemicals were being smuggled to that country for use in heroin.

However, a Taliban spokesman, approached by The Korea Times for comment, vehemently denied the charge, saying they are not involved in the drug trade.

Zabeehullah Mujahid said their government, under their fugitive leader Mullah Omar, had almost eradicated poppies in Afghanistan and even their staunchest opponents had admitted that. "Ours is an Islamic movement and our religion does not allow drugs business," he said.

However, a majority of Afghans believe the Taliban movement in the war-battered Afghanistan is fuelled by illicit money being obtained from the flourishing drug business.

This is reinforced by the fact that Taliban-related insurgency is on the rise and the militants are enjoying support in areas which are known for poppy cultivation.

Prominent among those provinces are Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan in the southern zone while the provinces of Nangarhar, Laghman and Maidan Wardak are also known as poppy-growing areas in Afghanistan.

Helmand, located south of the Afghan capital and where British forces are operating as part of NATO's peacekeeping and counter-insurgency mission, is known as the opium capital of Afghanistan.

From its provincial capital of Lashkargah to its cities, districts and towns, almost every part of Helmand has pockets of support for the Taliban and the support is meant to keep security forces away from destroying poppy crops.

The town of Musa Qala in Helmand province, which currently produces 80 percent of the total poppies produced in Afghanistan, was recaptured by NATO and government forces only last year.

"Taliban have links with international drug tycoons who pay the militants for the poppies as well as arms, ammunition, transportation and recruitment of new mercenaries," said Helmand Governor Asadullah Wafa.

The governor said the militants are right when they claim they are not directly involved in the drug business. However, he added, the militants are supporting and encouraging farmers to grow poppies and providing them with security against the police and Afghan army from destroying crops in return for getting their share at harvest time.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Report 2008, "five southern regions of Afghanistan controlled by Taliban militants produced enough poppies to double the world's opium output between 2005 and 2007".

The report says that narcotics supplies have risen sharply in parts of Afghanistan where insurgents are in control, helping them fund their activities. According to the report, global production of opium reached 8,870 metric tons last year, with Afghanistan first on the world map in heroin production; accounting for 92 per cent the same year.

The Afghan drugs trade is growing so fast that some fear the country could become a narco-state, where drug barons rule, not the government.

During his recent visit to Afghanistan, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, showed displeasure with the rising drug production during his meetings with provincial governors and officials responsible for controlling poppy cultivation in the war-battered country.

In one such meeting with the governor of Kunduz province, Cost, bluntly told his host that efforts to curb Afghan drugs are failing. "Not only has there been no success, the situation has deteriorated year by year since 2001," the U.N. official was quoted by media as telling the governor.

According to common Afghans as well as legislators, many top government officials, legislators, tribal elders and former warlords were involved in the drug trade in Afghanistan.

A member of the Afghan parliament, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told The Korea Times that those having links with the smugglers also enjoy close contacts with top government officials.

The legislator also raised an accusing finger at several provincial governors and police chiefs as well as some top officials of the ministries of defense and interior, saying the drugs trade and poppy cultivation would have diminished had those people not been involved.

He also believed that the rising drug trade was creating counter-effects on the Unites States and NATO's war against terror and helping the resurgence of Taliban militants in the country.