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KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan counternarcotics forces captured and destroyed three large drug laboratories in Helmand province Sept. 26, in reportedly the largest drug seizure ever made in Afghanistan by combined forces.
The Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan, partnered with coalition forces, targeted the facilities which were manufacturing drugs used to finance insurgent attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.
“We were able to confiscate large amounts of heroin and morphine, and in the process, two enemy fighters were killed.” said Afghan Gen. Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, Deputy Minister of Interior for Counter Narcotics.
Along with the narcotics laboratories, the combined forces destroyed 1,815 gallons of morphine solution, 220 pounds of heroin, 176 pounds of opium, 26,563 pounds of chemicals used to process narcotics and drug processing equipment, dealing a significant blow to the insurgency’s ability to fund operations.
“This is how the Taliban and Al-Qaeda finance their activities,” Ahmadi added.
The drug find is just one example of a larger overall trend for the CNPA.
So far this September, Afghan counternarcotics forces have seized 14,881 kg (32,738 pounds) of opium, 12,587 kg (27,691 pounds) of morphine, 430 kg (946 pounds) of heroin and 15,240 kg (33,528 pounds) of hashish. All of which has an estimated street value in Afghanistan of $47 million (U.S.) - a significant amount of money denied to the funding of insurgent operations.
Two Afghan law enforcement agencies have the primary responsibility of targeting the narcotics industry.
“The Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan and the Afghan Special Interdiction Units have increased their operational capability dramatically over this last year,” said British Royal Navy Rear Adm. Tony Johnstone-Burt, the International Security Assistance Force director for Counter Narcotics and International Organized Crime.
“Their intelligence units are focusing on prosecuting the key players in the principal drug trafficking organizations, criminal patronage networks and Afghan Mafia, rather than fixating on sweeping up the drug trade’s foot soldiers and destroying the opium labs alone.”
Along with their success destroying elements of the drug trade, Afghanistan’s all-encompassing National Drug Control Strategy also focuses on providing alternative livelihoods for farmers.
While Afghanistan’s security, development and economic stability may be challenged by the narcotics trade, they are also the avenues through which the Afghan government is combating the problem.
The Afghan government relies on the Ministry of Counter Narcotics, headed by Minister Zarar Moqbel Osmani, to develop a counternarcotics plan and strategy that is mainstreamed through a variety of government ministries at the national and provincial level.
“Under Minister Osmani’s lead, they have taken a holistic, cross-governmental approach with a National Drug Control Strategy,” said Johnstone-Burt.
While it is not in ISAF’s mandate to eradicate poppy fields, ISAF is in support of the counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan.
“ISAF is providing crucial support to the Afghan government and the Ministry of Counter Narcotics in training, mentoring and advising at every level to create the stability and security required for them to deliver the drug control strategy,” Johnstone-Burt said.
That strategy not only targets all the challenges that the narcotics industry creates as specific issues, but it also brings them together as a coherent and coordinated plan across all the relevant ministries.
According to the NDCS, the overall strategy is to secure a sustainable decrease in cultivation, production, trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs with a view to complete and sustainable elimination. The various ministries are used to target the strategy’s eight pillars: law enforcement, eradication, criminal justice, alternative livelihoods for farmers who grow poppy, drug demand reduction, institution building, public awareness and regional cooperation.
Afghanistan’s Ministry of the Interior is charged with enforcing the counternarcotics laws and regulations. As the primary ministry for the internal security of Afghanistan, the MoI is likely to see benefits throughout the ministry with the success of the counternarcotics program.
“One of the main sources of financing for the insurgents in Afghanistan comes directly from the cultivation of drugs,” said Sediq Sediqqi, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior.
Due to the recent success of the MoI’s CNPA and the Special Interdiction Units, insurgents will see significant loss in revenue from the narcotics trade.
“Their arrest and seizure rate is already over three times that of this time last year,” said Johnstone-Burt. “They are having a dramatic impact on the fight against drugs and crime in Afghanistan.”
Drug traffickers who are captured by the CNPA will find themselves in a legal system prepared to deal with counternarcotics. The Counter Narcotics Justice Center was created in Kabul specifically to prosecute cases against narcotics traffickers.
“The CNJC helps the judicial system to have a more impartial impact on counternarcotics without being influenced by the narco-traffickers,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. James Greer, an ISAF embedded strategic partner to the MoCN. “The CNPA and the Special Interdiction Units are going after major traffickers, people who are moving a lot of drugs, making a lot of money and influencing a lot of people.”
The system seems to work, as these traffickers are facing hard time in prison.
“With a conviction rate of over 90 percent, the justice center convicted over 600 drug traffickers last year, and their average sentence was over 18 years each,” said Johnstone-Burt.
While the MoI is focused on providing the security and law enforcement associated with the counternarcotics strategy, the ministries related to agriculture and rural development are implementing the alternative livelihood side of the strategy.
“We have a plan to change the farming from poppies to other crops, and this will help the Afghan economy get better,” said Osmani.
In a market where the price of opium has risen drastically since 2010 (as much as 300 percent according to the April 2011 Opium Winter Rapid Assessment Survey conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), the Ministry of Agriculture must find alternate crops farmers can grow instead of poppy.
“Herat province has been successful with saffron,” said Greer. “Kandahar has a long tradition of growing pomegranates, and it has been a successful alternative crop there.”
The Ministries of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, and Water and Energy are also hard at work ensuring the farmers have the resources necessary to grow, store and sell these alternative crops in a stable market.
“The farmer needs not only to be able to grow realistic and sustainable crops,” said Johnstone-Burt, “but he also needs the water to irrigate them, the energy for cold storage units, the road access to get them to market and an enduring market economy with which to trade, nationally, regionally and internationally.”
These efforts in development and economic stability are paying off in the counternarcotics arena.
“The Helmand Food Zone is the flagship program, which has taken this approach and benefited over 200,000 farmers since 2008, and over 48,000 so far this year,” said Johnstone-Burt. “Poppy cultivation in Helmand has also reduced by 39 percent over the last three years.”
Coinciding with its efforts to eradicate the Afghan supply of poppy, the National Drug Control Strategy also concentrates on reducing the Afghan demand through the Ministries of Public Health and Education.
While most of the poppy produced in Afghanistan is exported to other countries, according to a June 2011 report by the UNODC, 2.64 percent of Afghans consume the opium made from the poppy.
The public health and education ministries are making headway with provincial leaders as they combat the local narcotics addiction and are taking their marching orders from Osmani, who recently stated he wants to rehabilitate 40% of the drug addicts in Afghanistan over the next five years.
The governors of Balkh and Helmand provinces have a plan to set aside land for rehabilitation and job training facilities in their provinces, said Greer.
“This way,” said Greer, “the addicts can come in, get off drugs, get off the streets, learn a skill set and then have a way to make a living when they come out of treatment.”
The Afghan Ministries also receive aid from international organizations such as the Columbo Plan Drug Advisory Program, funded by the U.S. State Department. The Columbo Plan’s Afghanistan Initiative trains Afghan citizens working in drug abuse prevention.
The initiative also implements a counternarcotics public information program and helps the Afghans to develop a comprehensive preventive drug education program for schools.
While Afghanistan employs this coordinated counternarcotics approach within its own government, the country also partners with its regional neighbors in the fight against drugs.
Leaders from Russia, Pakistan and Tajikistan met with Minister Osmani in Kabul, Sept. 5-6, for the Quadrilateral Counter Narcotics Conference, at which the four nations agreed to cooperate regionally to combat the drug trade.
“They signed a joint statement,” said Johnstone-Burt, “in which they committed to take a regional and combined approach in fighting the narcotics industry in the region.”
| Date Taken: | 09.26.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 10.01.2011 01:01 |
| Story ID: | 77872 |
| Location: | KABUL, AF |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Afghan forces take out drug factories in largest narcotics seizure ever in Afghanistan, by SSG April Campbell, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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