Afghans ban drug production as US jets hunt al Qaeda

17 Jan, 2002 02:09 AM5 mins to read

2.45 pm

KABUL/WASHINGTON - US warplanes prowled the skies hunting for remaining al Qaeda and Taleban hideouts on Wednesday as Afghanistan wooed the world for aid by banning production and trafficking of opium and heroin.

Afghanistan has been one of the world's main sources of opium and its derivative heroin, making it a major thorn in the side for Western governments battling to halt the growing drugs trade.

The UN-backed interim government in Kabul pleaded for money to rebuild its shattered country ahead of a major donors' conference in Tokyo next week, and also asked for help to wean farmers off growing the opium poppy.

In another sign of returning normality, the government reopened the capital's airport after repairs to the runway which was damaged by US bombing late last year.

The government's tenuous hold on the rest of the country remained threatened however by a desperate lack of cash to pay salaries and repair offices.

The decree outlawing cultivation of the opium poppy and trafficking in opium and its derivatives renewed a ban issued by the Taleban two years ago that effectively lapsed with the collapse of the Muslim fundamentalist government last November.

"All countrymen, especially peasants and farmers, are informed that from now on, the cultivation, manufacturing, processing, impermissible use, smuggling and trafficking of opium poppy and all its derivatives is declared illegal," said the statement read to journalists by a UN official in Kabul.

"Violators will be dealt with severely," it said.

Despite the Taleban ban, which slashed Afghan opium production from 3276 tonnes in 2000 to a mere 185 tonnes last year, Afghanistan still has large stocks of opium and heroin that dealers are supplying to the world market.

The breakdown of law and order after the demise of the Taleban encouraged some members of the major Pashtun tribe to start sowing poppy seeds towards the end of last year.

Afghanistan's government is seeking $US22 billion ($52.66 billion) from international donors meeting in Japan next week and expects to receive pledges of support when US Secretary of State Colin Powell visits on Thursday as part of an Asia tour.

"Our figure is based on what is needed over 10 years," Afghanistan's top diplomat in the United States, charge d'affaires Haron Amin, told Reuters, putting his country's needs over 20 years at $US45 billion.

US officials said their warplanes, which in recent days levelled about 60 buildings and closed entrances to dozens of caves in the Zawar Kili region of eastern Afghanistan, were looking for fresh targets of opportunity and acting to prevent al Qaeda and Taleban forces from regrouping or operating.

Top of the list for the US-led anti-terror coalition are al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, prime suspect for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and his former chief protector Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taleban's spiritual leader.

The coalition said it was unaware if the two men were still in Afghanistan or had slipped away, but the search would go on.

"I can assure you that just because they haven't been caught ... doesn't mean that the coalition has relaxed its efforts," coalition spokesman Kenton Keith said in Islamabad.

"On land, in the air and on sea, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are being sought, and that process will continue until they are found," said Keith.

US military intelligence officers were questioning a man at a US base near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar after he went to offer key information on al Qaeda and the Taleban.

A senior US official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the man said he had been a major financial contributor to the former Taleban leadership in Afghanistan.

The man was not currently being held as a "detainee" by the US military, the official said.

"He is being treated differently for now because of the cordial way that he arrived" at the base.

Hundreds of al Qaeda and Taleban captives are being detained by the US military at Kandahar, and 80 have been flown to a US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

With dozens more prisoners expected to be flown to Cuba, US Attorney General John Ashcroft said American Taleban fighter John Walker Lindh would face criminal charges of aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation and could face life imprisonment.

"Walker knowingly and purposely allied himself with certain terrorist organisations," Ashcroft said.

"He chose to embrace fanatics and his allegiance to those fanatics and terrorists never faltered, not even with the knowledge that they had murdered thousands of his countrymen."

The decision on Walker meant that President George W Bush had opted against putting the American on trial before a military tribunal, where he could have faced the death penalty.

As a first step towards bringing Afghanistan back into the international fold, the UN Security Council, at the initiative of the US, lifted sanctions on Tuesday on the national Afghan airline.

The resolution was a prelude to an overhaul of sanctions that the council is expected to approve before Friday.

This overhaul would allow the central bank to resume operations, releasing funds frozen while the Taleban were in power, including some $US221 million in gold reserves and cash in the US.

The country made another tentative step towards ending its isolation on Wednesday when Kabul got it first mobile telephone system, giving UN officials and government ministers easy international dialling from the phone-starved city.

The Swedish telephone company Ericsson provided 200 telephones and all the necessary equipment in an initiative with the UN to provide reliable communications quickly to disaster areas, UN spokesmen said.

Kabul, the best-connected city in all of Afghanistan, has only 32,000 landline phones for more than a million residents.

- REUTERS

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