Trying to Bring Down the Taliban's Cash Cow

Some leading law enforcement officials believe the Taliban is facilitating the heroin trade because of the drug's crippling effects on Western societies, which are seen as enemy states under infidel regimes. The Australian

SOON before Mick Keelty arrived in Afghanistan last week, a violent jailbreak underlined the tough challenge the Australian Federal Police chief's men face on terror's front line. Late last year, a small group of AFP officers quietly slipped into Afghanistan to launch a mission even more ambitious than the Australian Defence Force's efforts to defeat al-Qa'ida. They were put in charge of an international bid to sharply restrict the Taliban's income by eliminating the cultivation and export of opium, the main source of the terror group's wealth.

Six years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban is again flush with funds from opium poppies that are the main source for the world's heroin supply. An estimated 93 per cent of the globe's heroin is sourced from Afghanistan.

As the US-led coalition's commando military units - Australians prominent among them - have been taking the fight to al-Qa'ida and Taliban militants, Afghan farmers have been tending their opium crops with impunity, often under the protective watch of Taliban chieftains, who turn a blind eye to heroin's lethal consequences worldwide, notwithstanding their puritanical interpretation of Islam.

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The raw numbers on opium production across Afghanistan show how daunting their task is. Figures supplied to the AFP suggest close to 9300 tonnes of opium were produced in Afghanistan in 2007. So far this year, an estimated 8200 tonnes have been produced.

The cultivation spike comes as the reinvigorated Taliban, accompanied by slowly growing numbers of foreigners who adhere to the violent form of jihad espoused by Osama bin Laden, roams Afghanistan's landscape with increasing confidence. As the jihadis rebuild militarily, the flow of heroin continues to grow.

Nearly all the white powder that makes it to Australia comes via ports in neighbouring Pakistan after a long overland journey. "It is coming out on mules protected by Taliban soldiers," Keelty says. "From there it makes its way to Australia, typically by freighter."

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