The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Kabul

Afghan drug lords are increasingly converting opium into heroin at home with outside technical help and chemicals smuggled from abroad, the U.N. said Monday, indicating greater sophistication for the country's already booming illegal drug trade.

Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium, a business that has grown rapidly since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in 2001. Both officials in the American-backed government and Taliban militants are believed to profit from the illicit trade.

According to U.N. figures, Afghanistan last year yielded about 9,000 tons of opium, enough to make over 900 tons of heroin.

Increasingly, the conversion of opium resin into heroin is being done inside Afghanistan, mostly at laboratories in the border regions, especially in the insurgency-plagued south and the east, said Christina Oguz, country representative for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Countries on international narcotics smuggling routes, such as Iran, Pakistan and even Turkey, are also suspected locations for heroin production. But Oguz estimated that as much as 70 percent of the deadly drug was now processed in Afghanistan itself.

Evidence of higher quality Afghan heroin indicates that those running the labs also are getting assistance from outside "chemists" - "foreign consultants" of sorts - Oguz told reporters in Kabul.

She did not elaborate on where the expertise came from beyond saying it was from countries near the border, but said the chemicals needed to make the heroin were being smuggled from European countries including Russia, from China, South Korea and other parts of the world.

She urged the international community to share more information on known smugglers of the chemicals, many of whom were "long-established and based in neighboring countries."

"It's not correct to blame Afghanistan alone for the heroin problem in the world," Oguz said. "It's true that this country is producing the raw material for heroin, the opium. But it is not possible to make heroin without certain chemicals, and these chemicals are not produced inside Afghanistan, they are smuggled into the country."