Word: drugging
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...growth industry. What crude oil is to the Middle East, poppies are to Afghanistan. A senior Afghan official estimates that 30% of the country's farmers now grow poppies, while the U.N. estimates that the area under cultivation increased 59% in the past year. Experts suggest that the drug situation in Afghanistan is moving from one that was manageable to one that is verging on being out of control...
...beneficiaries of that growth industry, according to the DEA, is Noorzai. He inherited not only his land but also his trade from his father. Several sources in Afghanistan claim that Noorzai's father was a successful drug smuggler. "This was definitely the family business," a Western official says. The tribal chief's family had had its vicissitudes: the communists who ruled Afghanistan till 1989 had stripped them of their land, and the teenage Noorzai went off to fight alongside the mujahedin in their war against the occupying Soviet forces. After the Soviets left, Noorzai made several thousand dollars recovering Stinger...
...times over the next five months, they spent hours grilling Noorzai, trying to find out what he knew about several subjects, including, as Noorzai puts it, "the powder business." According to transcripts TIME has reviewed, the agents were occasionally frustrated by the talks. They pressed Noorzai on how much drug money went to finance al-Qaeda. "None," Noorzai replied. "But the entire world says the opposite," Mike responded. Noorzai stood his ground: "I do not believe...
...would Noorzai provide any confirmation for his interrogators' obvious suspicions that he was in the drug business. When pressed about how he made his living, Noorzai said he inherited land in Kandahar from his father and grandfather and owns two large outdoor markets that generate up to $100,000 a year and that if sold would net about $2 million. He flatly denied U.S. intelligence claims that he had received $500 million in Taliban funds from Mullah Omar for safekeeping...
...says he would continue to do so. There is no question that elements of what he says--if true--would be extremely useful to American interests. He talks in some detail about current members of the Afghan government and other prominent Afghans he suspects are involved in the drug trade--even while insisting that...