Is there is a direct relation between terrorism and drugs? Have the Taliban movement and the Al-Qaeda organization turned to the plantation of poppy to fund their elements, activities, explosions and terrorist operations?! Is it permissible to fund the resistance with drugs money on the basis of the dogma "the end justifies the means"? In a lecture he delivered at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Drug Enforcement Administration Chief of Operations Michael Braun linked drugs to terrorism, indicating that many ties between drugs and terrorism were identified throughout the last 25 years and that around 60% of terrorist organizations were involved in drug trade. During the past years, terrorist organizations resorted to self-financing after they were blockaded by international legislations and after the siege was tightened around charities following the September 11, 2001 events. This made them expand the plantation of cannabis and all other sorts of drugs in areas controlled by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Around five years ago, a Saudi who worked in the Faculty of the Calling and the Jihad in Jalalabad during the Communist tide in Afghanistan, told me about the presence of Arabs who came to the country under the pretext of the Jihad, but were instead taking cannabis and manifesting a devious behavior. Moreover, the investigations conducted by the Saudi security apparatuses over a group of wanted elements, including Turki al-Dandani, Kuwaiti national Abdul Rahman Jabara and two others who were killed at the Suwayr mosque near Al-Jouf (North of Saudi Arabia) in July 2003, revealed that they were using drugs after the DNA tests conducted on the corpse of Al-Dandani proved he was taking illegal substances. In that same context, Saudi Sheikh Sarraj al-Zahrani revealed to Al-Arabiya channel on "Sinaat al-Mawt" show a while ago, that he personally saw numerous sins committed by the Arab recruits in gathering and training centers in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and that this reached the point where cannabis was consumed. He thus assured that the perfect picture which some tried to give to the Afghan Jihad stage during the eighties was inaccurate. Today, Afghanistan is considered to be the greatest producer of poppy around the world. This plant is used to make opium, which is the main component in the production of heroin. According to United Nations reports, the size of the opium crop will reach up to 6,100 tons, while the highest percentage of it will come from the Southern part of the country that is under the control of the Taliban movement, the ally of Al-Qaeda organization. Only six out of the 34 Afghan provinces are not producing opium, which means that the entire country is planting poppy and delivering it to the world. Therefore, what is the alternative once these plantations, which are introducing around $2.7 billion to the second poorest country in the world, are eliminated? Opium constitutes one third of the economy, while even in the Helmand province that is under the control of the Taliban armed elements, the poppy crop has risen by 162% compared to last year. The figures are significantly high and herald a dangerous threat ahead of the Afghan community and the entire world, considering that the entire country has become involved in the drug business in light of the weakness of the authority and the continuation of the poppy plantation outside the control of Karzai's (frail) government. Consequently, the international warnings against the prolongation of the drug problem and the opium plantation are increasing, amid the inability of the NATO forces to deter the Taliban on the military level and the inability of the Kabul government to issue legislations that would put an end to this practice which will destroy the Afghan population before any other. In light of the rise affecting the Afghan production of opium, it seems that the political, military and economic activities undertaken by the NATO member states in Afghanistan have failed to contain the spread of the poppy plantations, which calls for an international effort to help Karzai's government ratify laws that would fight drugs and their production in this poor country, destroy these farms and train the Afghan farmers on how to plant products that would be beneficial to the minds and bellies of the people. In this context, Viktor Ivanov, director of Russia's Federal Service for the Control of Narcotics, previously suggested to the ambassadors of the NATO member states to get an authorization from the UN to annihilate the Afghan poppy fields used to produce opium, causing the death of around 30,000 Russians per year and entailing the presence of around 200,000 heroin and morphine addicts on Russian soil. There is no doubt that the drug menace is major and that the international efforts to fight it are insufficient. Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states, for example, are waging a public war against this destructive scourge, reaching the level of a death sentence based on Saudi law. However, not one month goes by without the Interior Ministry announcing the seizure of massive quantities of smuggled drugs targeting the minds of the youth and the entire community. Nonetheless, in its statements and press conferences, the Saudi Interior Ministry does not mention who is standing behind the exportation of this plague into its territories and does not say whether there is a link between the confiscated drugs and the terrorist groups or that they are solely connected to drug dealers. Why does it not officially name the states targeting the Saudi domestic arena through the destruction of the minds of its youth? Afghanistan, the global "opium" factory, will see the rise of the poppy production year after year. This means there is an urgent need to control the border, contain the smuggling of this plague, and implement the legal measures on anyone who attempts to destroy the communities, before the number of drug addicts around the world increases, in parallel to the increase affecting the production of this destructive plant.
