Reasonable Rascal
10-04-01, 23:42
Posted: 10/4/01
"Tears of Allah"
Another weapon in Osama bin Laden's war against the West
By Edward T. Pound and Chitra Ragavan
Osama bin Laden's search for new ways to strike at the West may have gone beyond planes and bombs. Officials believe that shortly after the Saudi exile's operatives bombed two U.S. embassies in August 1998, he began searching for another weapon in his war against the West-a super-charged drug that bin Laden hoped would worsen addiction and possibly even kill the infidels. He called it the "Tears of Allah."
These officials told U.S. News that bin Laden's plan to let loose a plague of potent heroin on the United States and its friends was detailed in intelligence reports from U.S. allies. Tears of Allah was described as a liquid drug, requiring 50 kilograms of opium to produce one liter of heroin. Officials say the reports describe how bin Laden and his al Qaeda network of terrorists recruited chemists in South Asia in an unsuccessful attempt to create the powerful new concoction. "It was a chemical dud,'' explains one official. "He wanted a deadly form of the drug and he wanted to get it to the U.S. He wanted to kill."
Officials disclosed the plan to underscore the breadth of bin Laden's efforts to maim and murder his enemies. Bin Laden is now the most hunted man in the world, said by the U.S. and its allies to be the brains behind the deadly Sept. 11 bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
His ties to the illicit drug trade have been difficult to pin down. But American authorities are now convinced of the accuracy of foreign intelligence reports detailing his involvement. "He sees it as a way to poison the West,'' says one U.S. official. Experts say bin Laden has profited from the drug trade by taking payment for providing armed fighters to protect opium and heroin shipments moving from Afghanistan to the West, primarily Europe. They also say that the intelligence reports link bin Laden's people to the labs in Afghanistan where heroin is produced.
Officials maintain that bin Laden does not need the drug trade to finance his terrorism, but instead became involved as a good will gesture designed to cement his relationship with the militant Islamic Taliban government. The Taliban-which controls most of the impoverished nation-has provided bin Laden with a safe haven for more than five years.
Opium is one of Afghanistan's few cash crops, and there is no doubt that the Taliban government profits from the illicit trade. Western officials say the opium and heroin trade provides a ready source of badly needed cash for the Taliban. A United Nations report issued earlier this year put it this way: "Funds raised from the production and trading of opium and heroin are used by the Taliban to buy arms and other war materiel, and to finance the training of terrorists and support the operations of these extremists in
neighboring countries and abroad.'' U.S. officials estimate that the Taliban makes at least $50 million a year by taxing and selling opium and by providing protection for smugglers.
Afghanistan became the world's largest producer of raw opium in the 1990s, supplying more than 70 percent of global demand. According to U.S officials, the country produced more than 3,600 metric tons last year. Last July, U.S. officials say, the Taliban sought to polish its image by declaring a ban on the cultivation of opium poppy. Opium production did drop substantially, but U.S. officials contend the move was part of larger scheme to reduce supply and drive up the wholesale price. The Taliban stockpiled much of the 2000 crop, and the wholesale price did indeed rise tenfold to $301 from $30 a kilogram, according to the United Nations. American officials now say it is essential for the United States and its coalition to destroy the poppy fields and choke off this valuable revenue stream if the war against terrorism is to succeed. Anticipating a possible strike, U.S. officials say, law-enforcement agencies both here and overseas have provided the Defense Department with the locations of some of the stockpiled opium and heroin. The trouble now is that since Sept. 11, the Taliban has been moving the stockpiles, the officials say. In an interview, Asa Hutchinson, the new administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, declined to say whether he thought the United States would go after the stockpiles. "The focus is obviously to get after the terrorists,'' he says. "But, whenever you see the terrorist training camps and the poppy fields and the opium labs in the same geographic area, there is a correlation that is impossible to avoid."
"Heroin is to Afghanistan what oil is to Saddam Hussein,'' says another American official. "It is the juice.'' He says that by destroying the fields, the West would be killing off a critical source of cash to the Taliban and hurting bin Laden as well. The United States needs to "starve the terrorists' treasuries of money,'' adds Rep. Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican, who wants DEA agents to begin training border police in the region.
Efforts to track down or kill bin Laden have failed. After his network bombed the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998, then President Clinton ordered missile strikes on training camps used by bin Laden's forces in Afghanistan. Bin Laden avoided the attack. Soon after that, he began trying to develop the new potent form of heroin known as the Tears of Allah, according to an American official who has reviewed foreign intelligence reports. "He wasn't just thinking ABC,'' the official says, referring to atomic, biological, and chemical warfare. "He was thinking ABCD'' to include drug warfare.
With Linda Robinson
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/terror/heroin.htm
"Tears of Allah"
Another weapon in Osama bin Laden's war against the West
By Edward T. Pound and Chitra Ragavan
Osama bin Laden's search for new ways to strike at the West may have gone beyond planes and bombs. Officials believe that shortly after the Saudi exile's operatives bombed two U.S. embassies in August 1998, he began searching for another weapon in his war against the West-a super-charged drug that bin Laden hoped would worsen addiction and possibly even kill the infidels. He called it the "Tears of Allah."
These officials told U.S. News that bin Laden's plan to let loose a plague of potent heroin on the United States and its friends was detailed in intelligence reports from U.S. allies. Tears of Allah was described as a liquid drug, requiring 50 kilograms of opium to produce one liter of heroin. Officials say the reports describe how bin Laden and his al Qaeda network of terrorists recruited chemists in South Asia in an unsuccessful attempt to create the powerful new concoction. "It was a chemical dud,'' explains one official. "He wanted a deadly form of the drug and he wanted to get it to the U.S. He wanted to kill."
Officials disclosed the plan to underscore the breadth of bin Laden's efforts to maim and murder his enemies. Bin Laden is now the most hunted man in the world, said by the U.S. and its allies to be the brains behind the deadly Sept. 11 bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
His ties to the illicit drug trade have been difficult to pin down. But American authorities are now convinced of the accuracy of foreign intelligence reports detailing his involvement. "He sees it as a way to poison the West,'' says one U.S. official. Experts say bin Laden has profited from the drug trade by taking payment for providing armed fighters to protect opium and heroin shipments moving from Afghanistan to the West, primarily Europe. They also say that the intelligence reports link bin Laden's people to the labs in Afghanistan where heroin is produced.
Officials maintain that bin Laden does not need the drug trade to finance his terrorism, but instead became involved as a good will gesture designed to cement his relationship with the militant Islamic Taliban government. The Taliban-which controls most of the impoverished nation-has provided bin Laden with a safe haven for more than five years.
Opium is one of Afghanistan's few cash crops, and there is no doubt that the Taliban government profits from the illicit trade. Western officials say the opium and heroin trade provides a ready source of badly needed cash for the Taliban. A United Nations report issued earlier this year put it this way: "Funds raised from the production and trading of opium and heroin are used by the Taliban to buy arms and other war materiel, and to finance the training of terrorists and support the operations of these extremists in
neighboring countries and abroad.'' U.S. officials estimate that the Taliban makes at least $50 million a year by taxing and selling opium and by providing protection for smugglers.
Afghanistan became the world's largest producer of raw opium in the 1990s, supplying more than 70 percent of global demand. According to U.S officials, the country produced more than 3,600 metric tons last year. Last July, U.S. officials say, the Taliban sought to polish its image by declaring a ban on the cultivation of opium poppy. Opium production did drop substantially, but U.S. officials contend the move was part of larger scheme to reduce supply and drive up the wholesale price. The Taliban stockpiled much of the 2000 crop, and the wholesale price did indeed rise tenfold to $301 from $30 a kilogram, according to the United Nations. American officials now say it is essential for the United States and its coalition to destroy the poppy fields and choke off this valuable revenue stream if the war against terrorism is to succeed. Anticipating a possible strike, U.S. officials say, law-enforcement agencies both here and overseas have provided the Defense Department with the locations of some of the stockpiled opium and heroin. The trouble now is that since Sept. 11, the Taliban has been moving the stockpiles, the officials say. In an interview, Asa Hutchinson, the new administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, declined to say whether he thought the United States would go after the stockpiles. "The focus is obviously to get after the terrorists,'' he says. "But, whenever you see the terrorist training camps and the poppy fields and the opium labs in the same geographic area, there is a correlation that is impossible to avoid."
"Heroin is to Afghanistan what oil is to Saddam Hussein,'' says another American official. "It is the juice.'' He says that by destroying the fields, the West would be killing off a critical source of cash to the Taliban and hurting bin Laden as well. The United States needs to "starve the terrorists' treasuries of money,'' adds Rep. Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican, who wants DEA agents to begin training border police in the region.
Efforts to track down or kill bin Laden have failed. After his network bombed the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998, then President Clinton ordered missile strikes on training camps used by bin Laden's forces in Afghanistan. Bin Laden avoided the attack. Soon after that, he began trying to develop the new potent form of heroin known as the Tears of Allah, according to an American official who has reviewed foreign intelligence reports. "He wasn't just thinking ABC,'' the official says, referring to atomic, biological, and chemical warfare. "He was thinking ABCD'' to include drug warfare.
With Linda Robinson
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/terror/heroin.htm