Dope War in Afghanistan

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and élite Afghan counter-drug units are poised to stage an aggressive offensive this fall against drug traffickers who are reaping enormous profits in Afghanistan, the world's No. 1 source of opium and heroin. Although Afghanistan's poppy farmers produce about 87% of the world's opium, according to a recent United Nations report, the Bush Administration has been unwilling to deploy the U.S. military to eradicate poppy fields for fear of antagonizing the hundreds of thousands of impoverished villagers whose livelihoods depend on the crop.

Rather than target the crops, however, the new campaign aims to crush trafficking kingpins and their patrons in government who have formed power centers to rival those of noncorrupt officials. The problem so far has been gathering evidence against the crooked players, but now the DEA has given special-ops training to a cadre of 128 Afghan officers vetted for corruption. They will be joined by five Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams (FAST) of DEA agent-advisers at a secure base with modern electronics outside Kabul. The goal is to have the units gather data from documents, computer discs, cell and satellite phones, and other data sources during raids of labs and drug caches. The evidence will then be turned over to teams of prosecutors and judges being organized by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. --By Elaine Shannon