View from Canberra: The Taliban’s drug habit | ADM August 2012

The Taliban are commonly perceived as a bunch of steely-eyed bearded fanatics intent on reimposing their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam on Afghanistan. Increasingly, the Taliban is emerging as a bunch of steely-eyed bearded fanatics intimately linked to the world's biggest narcotics operation.

Not that long ago, the coalition was equivocal about the links between the insurgency and the drug trade. No longer. Afghanistan now produces around 90 per cent of the world's opium and, on UN figures, the insurgency reaps about US$200 million a year from drugs.

“That's not all their funding but it's a substantial chunk of their income,” British Brigadier Mark Milligan, a senior figure in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) counter-narcotics program, said.

ISAF's counter-corruption supremo US Brigadier General Ricky Waddell reckons the enduring threat, past transition and for the foreseeable future, will be narco-financed global terrorism. That means groups such as al-Qaeda, cashed up on the proceeds of drug dealing, funding a fresh wave of global terror attacks - and they'd like nothing more than to stage a bigger better 9/11.

Waddell says there would be drug trafficking organisations that don't interact with the insurgents and there are probably insurgents who don't have drug money.

“It is the insurgents with drug money that pose the biggest threat,” he said. “If you look at where the FARC went in Colombia, the Taliban is well on their way to that. They are actually a huge criminal organisation that has a certain theological and ideological predisposition. The largest drug trafficking organisation here is the Taliban. The largest organised criminal organisation is the Taliban.”

FARC - a Spanish for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - is a leftist group which started out in the 1960s championing Colombia's rural poor but which is now deeply involved in the production and distribution of cocaine.

The Taliban can justify their involvement in the drugs business on grounds that they are supplying to godless infidels, with some justification as the largest single consumer of the heroin produced from Afghan opium is Russia, followed by Western Europe. Most heroin reaching the US comes from Mexico.

But Afghanistan now has a growing number of addicts of its own - on some estimates more than million in a population of 30 million. Overwhelmingly they consume raw opium rather than refined heroin and it's suspected there are more female than male addicts and a growing number of child addicts. Addiction treatment facilities are limited at best.

With that much opium originating from the poppy fields of southern Afghanistan – 5,800 tonnes last year - it would be expected that some finds its way to Australia but just how much isn't clear.

In a 2011 threat assessment, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says Afghan heroin formed the overwhelming majority of heroin abused in Australia. In its illicit drug data report for 2010-11, the Australian Crime Commission says analysis of seized heroin shows most still originates in South-East Asia, including Burma and Thailand, but with a growing proportion from South-West Asia, including Afghanistan. Whatever the origin, most concerning is the rising quantity of heroin available in Australia as indicated by police and Customs busts. In 2009-10, 74.7 kilograms of heroin were seized. In 2010-11, the latest year for which comprehensive figures are available, heroin seizures rose more than 400 per cent to 375.7 kilograms, the most since 2002-03. Does this make Afghanistan's drug trade and its links to terrorism a clear and present danger to Australia? The government certainly isn't saying so in as many words.

In her speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in April, Prime Minister Julia Gillard repeated the familiar refrain - successive governments have seen our national interest in making sure that Afghanistan does not again become a safe haven for terrorists.

Quite likely that covers terrorists in the heroin business. However, the reality on the ground is that Australian troops, especially special forces, are playing a very active role in suppressing the drugs business where it intersects with the insurgency. In a series of operations, the Special Operations Task Group, has raised drug labs and other drug facilities, finding big quantities of drugs and, inevitably, all the usual insurgent paraphernalia including weapons and improvised explosives devices and their components.

SOTG invariably works in conjunction with the highly regarded National Interdiction Unit (NIU), the premier field force within Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics Police.

This brings a policing perspective to special forces operations. That's because the average drug lab is full of incriminating evidence and the Afghan criminal justice system deals far more harshly with those convicted of drug offences than it does with those on terror and insurgency related charges.

The average sentence for a serious narcotics offence is 15-20 years, around three to four times the time the average insurgent can expect to spend in the slammer.

The SOTG has been involved in counter-narcotics for about a year with the first missions with NIU conducted in May and June, 2011. There have been plenty since but this variation in Australia's Afghanistan mission has attracted little public attention. Most of the action occurs in north Helmand and Kandahar provinces, areas which adjoin Oruzgan Province and where the central government's influence is minimal.

In a statement in March, the Taliban's shadow governor for Helmand Mullah Naim Barich urged his followers to take all possible measures to protect the poppy fields.

“Where there is no poppy, there is no Taliban,” he said.

The consequence has been serious firefights as insurgents have mounted a stout defence of their operations. They invariably lose but the consequence has been some wounded Australian soldiers. Australia has one other area of involvement in counternarcotics and that's in the North Arabian Sea where a warship and RAAF AP-3C maritime surveillance aircraft patrol to detect pirates and also in support of the counter terrorist and counter-narcotics Combined Task Force 150. In February, HMAS Parramatta intercepted a motorised dhow with a search revealing more than 260 kilograms of assorted amphetamines and heroin concealed in bags of flour and rice.

In an earlier age, the response could have been to steam to a safe distance reduce the vessel, drugs and crew to their component parts with the ship's gun. In this kinder and gentler age, rules of engagement stipulate a more humane approach. In this case, the drugs were dumped overboard and the vessel and crew sent on their way.