Senior U.S. Congressman & Russian Official Comment on Terrorist Funding Through Afghan Drugs

By Andrew Cochran

A senior member of the U.S. Congress and the director of Russia's drug enforcement agency have commented in recent days on the flow of drugs from Afghanistan that is used to finance terrorism. Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the U.S. House International Relations Committee, sent this letter (Acrobat file) to Secretary of State Rice on September 8, in which he wrote of the issue of "the emerging and dangerous growth of the illicit drug trade in Iraq, especially with heroin, now originating and pouring out of nearby Afghanistan...We know that illicit drugs fuel and finance terrorism in Afghanistan, where the opium and heroin in the region originates. It passes out through terrorist-controlled areas, is taxed by them, and helps finance and arm our terrorist enemies, including the Taliban, Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), and al-Qaeda, who are all attacking American troops and seeking to destoy the new Afghan democracy." An article in yesterday's "Washington Times" quoted a former Pentagon official: "Iraq has become a transit route for drugs, which are sold in both Europe and in Iraq and are used to further destabilize Iraq by funding anti-coalition militant activities in Iraq." Chairman Hyde requested that Secretary Rice fund a special study of the drug situation in Iraq, to be conducted by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Chairman Hyde's concern was echoed today by Russian official Viktor Cherkesov during a meeting with the UNODC. Cherkesov reported that Russia seized a record 3.9 metric tons of heroin in 2004. The UNODC reports that the land dedicated to heroin production actually fell this year by 21% from 2004.

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