Taliban exploits Central Asian instability to facilitate drug smuggling

TASHKENT - For centuries, the Silk Road carried silks, spices and other goods across Central Asia between East and West. Today there is a new Central Asian trade route — the Northern Route, stretching from Afghanistan through Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

But the goods travelling the Northern Route are debilitating, deadly and fund terror. T

The UN estimates that 21% of the illicit drugs produced in Afghanistan are moved along the Northern Route. That includes some 95 tonnes of heroin worth US $126 billion annually, contributing to a total annual turnover of Afghan-sourced drugs estimated at US$600 billion.

Those revenues go to fund the Taliban’s campaign of terror against the Afghan government and civilians.

According to Rustam Nazarov, director of the Tajik Drug Control Agency, there are several ways to transport narcotics via Central Asia: from the Afghan province of Herat, via Turkmenistan, to Russia and further to Europe; or from Qunduz, Afghanistan via Tajikistan to Russia.

A third route runs from Qunduz, across Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia. Smugglers also deliver merchandise from the Afghan province of Balkh, via Mazar-i-Sharif, to Uzbekistan’s Termez, Qarshi, Bukhara, Urgench and Nuqus, then to Kazakhstan and Russia.

Although the Uzbek-Afghan border is only 137km long, one analyst said the stretch near Termez is difficult to patrol because of rough terrain and the existence of hundreds of mountain paths known only to local guides. Insiders consider this route ideal for heroin smuggling to Central Asia.

However, an official of the Uzbek State Customs Committee who requested anonymity, said attempts to smuggle narcotics across the Uzbek-Afghan border are hopeless. Guards watch the border closely, and the customs checkpoint near the bridge across the Amudarya contains sophisticated devices to monitor what vehicles and their passengers are carrying.

The customs representative said drug dealers are much more “aggressive” in breaching the Uzbek-Tajik border, which is 1,161km long.

A source with the Uzbek National Centre for Information Analysis on Drug Control has said pedestrians carry 61% of the drugs. Motor vehicles, aircraft and ships transport the rest.

Another Uzbek customs official, Erkin Khodjayev, said couriers often hide narcotics in vegetables, fruit, secret car compartments, hand luggage, household appliances, and clothes. Some swallow capsules, but that can lead to a fatal overdose if stomach acid breaches the capsule.

Anvar Turayev, an independent sociologist and former narcologist, said the poor and desperate — like mothers of large families or impoverished teenagers — are the most common smugglers.

“They work for a piece of bread”, he said.

Oidin Akhmedova, a woman charged with drug smuggling and with involving a minor in criminal activities, said her husband went to Russia to look for a job five years ago but vanished.

She said she had no other way to earn a living: “I worked to earn just enough to buy food and clothes”, she said. Akhmedova might spend the next 15 years in prison.

Drugs might even be a national security problem.

“The civil war in Tajikistan, the revolution in Kyrgyzstan and the events in Andijan show that the leaders of Central Asian countries must take into account the very influential and rich — particularly in comparison with the impoverished majority — drug mafia”, independent political scientist Zakir Khodzhiyev said. “The forces involved in drug smuggling will always be interested in seeing the regional countries in a state of instability”.

The governments do a poor job of fighting drug use and of patrolling their borders, he said.

“Corrupt practises within the law enforcement agencies and other government structures encourage drug trafficking. Besides, the level of law enforcers’ co-operation ... is clearly insufficient”, Khodzhiyev said.

Analysts at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said lack of interagency co-ordination reduces the efficiency of drug-control measures.

But sometimes, the countries have successfully working together.

In 2008 Afghan, Uzbek, Tajik and Kazakh authorities carried out Operation Typhoon to curb the activities of a Central Asian ring smuggling drugs from Afghanistan to Russia. In that operation, investigators seized 980kg of narcotics and made 42 arrests.

Since 1994 the UN Drug Control Programme has worked with the governments of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to try to boost co-operation and stem the drug trade.

The Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia have also tried to tackle the problem.

A collective security treaty official who asked not to be identified said: “The problem is that the regional countries have failed to co-operate in due form. ... As long as that is so, the Taliban will continue smuggling drugs via Central Asia to earn colossal incomes”.