NEWSWEEK: Afghan Official: 'We Are Losing The Fight Against Drug Traffickers'

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Source Close to Interior Ministry Says at Least 13 Former and Present

Provincial Governors and Four Past or Current Cabinet Ministers Involved In

Drug Trafficking

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Many Suspected Traffickers Are Key Allies In War Against Terrorism

NEW YORK, Jan. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- In the privacy of his sparsely furnished house in Kabul, a veteran Afghan Interior Ministry official says the situation may already be hopeless. Although he has no authorization to speak with the press, and he could be in personal danger if his identity became known, he's nevertheless too worried to keep silent. "We are losing the fight against drug traffickers," he tells Newsweek in the January 9 issue (on newsstands Monday, January 2). "If we don't crack down on these guys soon, it won't be long until they're in control of everything."

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060101/NYSU003)

Narcotics trafficking in Afghanistan isn't merely big, it's more than half the economy -- amounting to $2.7 billion annually, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. And many of the underground industry's most important figures are said to be senior government officials in Kabul and the provinces, report Southeast Asia Correspondent Ron Moreau and Special Correspondent Sami Yousafzai. Amanullah Paiman, a newly elected member of parliament from the far northern province of Badakhshan, has studied the country's drug problem and says Afghan government officials are involved in at least 70 percent of the traffic. "The chain of narcodollars goes from the districts to the highest levels of government," he says.

That accusation is supported by the public complaints of Ali Jalali, a former Interior minister who quit the job this past summer. He has repeatedly said he has a list of more than 100 high-ranking Afghan officials he suspects of involvement in the drug trade. A source close to him, fearful of being killed if identified, says Jalali's unpublished list includes at least 13 former and present provincial governors and four past or present cabinet ministers. The source adds that one of the minister's chief reasons for resigning was his frustration over President Hamid Karzai's failure to sack and prosecute crooked officials.

But Karzai is in the most difficult of positions. Many of the figures under suspicion were useful to the United States in the overthrow of the Taliban and continue to serve as checks against the old regime's resurgence. "His options are limited," says senior presidential adviser Javed Ludin. "These guys have been propped up by and are allied with U.S.-led Coalition forces ... The same people who are being accused by some in the international community of being drug traffickers ... are our most reliable partners in the war against terrorism."

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