Could increased fighting in northern
Afghanistan lead to an influx of drugs transiting through Tajikistan
and Central Asia to Russia and Europe? That is the worry of senior
officials in the region.
"The drug situation depends on
Afghanistan, because all the drugs we catch come from Afghanistan," Lt
Gen Rustum Nazarov, head of Tajikistan's Drug Control Agency, told me in
Dushanbe. He said that Afghanistan already produces 90% of the world's opium and that flow could increase if the Afghan government loses control of the porous Afghan-Tajik border, much of it formed only by the Panj river.
Hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and Central Asian fighters from half a dozen different groups have seized control of large tracts of the northern Afghan provinces which border Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.
"We are looking at a worsening military situation in Afghanistan and the flow of drugs will increase the more the warlords and extremists get to control the Afghan side of the border," said Gen Nazarov.
