Afghanistan - Drugs

Afghanistan is essentially a smuggling and transportation economy. Drugs represent the largest single hard-currency earner. Poppies and sensimilla products are easily grown and are in wide propagation. The best hashish in the world comes from Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, a major destination for Western drug smugglers before the Russians rolled in. The Russian army picked up the nasty habit of smoking opium and mainlining heroin while they were here (a practice that continues to this day in needle-strewn streets from Grozny to Moscow). Haji Ayub Afridi controls most of the traffic in heroin and hash from Afghanistan into Pakistan. His massive house in Landi Kotal is famous for its opulence. Instead of jockeys on the lawn, he has opted for anti-aircraft guns. I was offered a job as one of his gunmen, but figured that 2000 Pakistani rupees a month (about $65) and a new Kalashnikov were not an upward career move. Ayub has about 100 gunmen and was forced to move to Jalalabad from Landi Kotal after the U.S. pressured Pakistan to "clean up the drug trade."

Most drugs are trucked directly through Peshawar and Quetta with the complicity of border guards and police. Other tribes like to pack the brown stuff the hard way (overland by mule through Iran and Turkey). Other middlemen use human mules. Freelance smugglers and stupid tourists still buy hashish and heroin in the smuggler's bazaar in Peshawar, Pakistan, and discover when it's too late that the government offers a 5000 rupee reward for turning in dope heads (your guide gets to keep your dope money). Other smugglers (usually Nigerians, Afghans and Pakistanis) end up losing their heads when caught flying through Saudi Arabia with dope poorly concealed in various luggage and orifices.

Stingers for Sale

Want a quick $55 million? Just round up the 300 or so aging Stinger missiles given to the Afghan rebels in the mid-1980s and send them back to Uncle Sam. The U.S. government has a standing offer to buy back the handheld, heat-seeking, antiaircraft weapons not because they need them for defense purposes, but because of the threat they pose to commercial aviation in the Middle East. The Stingers make the perfect gift for armchair terrorists craving to take a commercial jetliner out of the sky on a Sunday afternoon. The most recent commercial victim of this effective weapon was a Tupolev Tu-154 in Georgia.

The bad news is that tribal chiefs who are trafficking in opium were outbidding the CIA for the leftover Stinger missiles now in the hands of Afghan mujahedin commanders. Recently, one tribal chief bought 105 Stingers in the Towr Kham region. Other bidders are fundamentalist groups, as well as Iranian and North Korean intelligence services. Keep in mind that stingers are heatseekers and are only efficient at altitude where planes are landing or taking off. You're safe at 35,000 feet.