In the shadow of the craggy mountains overlooking the road between Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, a specially trained unit of police conducted a nearly perfect ambush of a drug dealer.
Officers surrounded Sayyed Jan's vehicle so quickly that his two bodyguards never had a chance to fire their weapons, and he was caught moving at least 183 kilograms of pure heroin.
But the Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan realized they had a problem when they discovered that Mr. Jan's powerful friends included their own boss. The drug dealer was carrying a signed letter of protection from General Mohammed Daud Daud, the deputy minister of interior responsible for counternarcotics, widely considered Afghanistan's most powerful anti-drug czar.
That document, along with other papers and interviews with well-placed sources, show that Gen. Daud has safeguarded shipments of illegal opiates even as he commands thousands of officers sworn to fight the trade. Some accuse the deputy minister of taking a major cut of dealers' profits, ranking him among the biggest players in Afghanistan's $3-billion (U.S.) drug industry.
Reached by telephone this week, Gen. Daud angrily denied involvement in drug corruption. “Your information is completely defective and deficient, and shameful for the prestige of journalism,” he said.
The Globe and Mail's investigation of Gen. Daud highlights the wider implications of drug cartels operating inside the Kabul administration. It's a toxic triangle of alliances, as corrupt officials work with drug traffickers who, in turn, help the Taliban.
Some international officials still say the corruption is limited to isolated bureaucrats who supplement their meagre salaries with graft. But a growing number of informed observers now agree with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent description of Afghanistan as a “narco-state,” saying they are concerned about networks of corrupt officials taking over parts of government – in effect, running branches of the state for illegal gain.
This is a problem for Canada and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries, not only because Afghanistan supplies most of the heroin on their own streets, officials say, and not only because such large-scale corruption wastes the money and lives spent in support of the Kabul government.
More importantly, the routes used to export heroin also bring guns and ammunition into the country, giving firepower to those killing Canadian soldiers. The drug barons inside the Afghan administration are believed to be cutting deals across enemy lines, supplying cash and weapons to the rising insurgency.
THE WOLF AS SHEPHERD
One of the most notorious departments in Kabul is the anti-drug section of the Ministry of Interior, the Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan.
Gen. Daud has been responsible for the CNPA since his presidential appointment as deputy minister for Counternarcotics in 2004, and the force has grown to an estimated 3,000 drug officers across the country. But the documents and case studies gathered by The Globe and Mail paint a disturbing portrait of his role in the industry.
“You have chosen a wolf as your shepherd,” said an Afghan police officer who worked with Gen. Daud.
The officer spoke on condition of anonymity, as did all other Western and Afghan officials who provided details about drug corruption.
Talking about narcotics can be dangerous in Kabul; in December, an outspoken judge who handled drug cases was dragged out of his house by masked men and executed with a gunshot to the head.
One of the few people who has discussed Gen. Daud's dealings on the record is Lieutenant Nyamatullah Nyamat, then serving as head of the counternarcotics police in Kunduz province. He gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times accusing Gen. Daud of running a drug business in northern Afghanistan and protecting other dealers; shortly after the article was published in 2005, Lt. Nyamat disappeared. Two sources familiar with the incident said British advisers to the CNPA scrambled to ensure the lieutenant's safety, holding a meeting in which Gen. Daud admitted ordering his arrest. (Gen. Daud now denies this.) The lieutenant was eventually released unharmed, and reassigned to a less active post in central Afghanistan.
The Kabul government has often emphasized the lack of firm evidence against its top members; Ms. Clinton's “narco-state” reference was angrily rejected by government officials earlier this year. Gen. Daud's boss, Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, specifically defended the counternarcotics force during an interview last month at his elegant offices in Kabul. When asked whether he still has confidence in the CNPA, Mr. Atmar nodded vigorously.
