[And al-Qaeda rides with them]
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3345186.ece
17 January 2008
The Independent (UK)
Opium fields spread across Iraq as farmers try to make ends meet
By Patrick Cockburn
The cultivation of opium poppies whose product is turned into heroin is
spreading rapidly across Iraq as farmers find they can no longer make a
living through growing traditional crops.
Afghan with experience in planting poppies have been helping farmers
switch to producing opium in fertile parts of Diyala province, once
famous for its oranges and pomegranates, north- east of Baghdad.
At a heavily guarded farm near the town of Buhriz, south of the
provincial capital Baquba, poppies are grown between the orange trees
in order to hide them, according to a local source.
The shift by Iraqi farmers to producing opium was first revealed by The
Independent last May and is a very recent development. The first poppy
fields, funded by drug smugglers who previously supplied Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf with heroin from Afghanistan, were close to the city of
Diwaniyah in southern Iraq. The growing of poppies has now spread to
Diyala, which is one of the places in Iraq where al-Qa'ida is still
resisting US and Iraqi government forces. It is also deeply divided
between Sunni, Shia and Kurd and the extreme violence means that local
security men have little time to deal with the drugs trade. The speed
with which farmers are turning to poppies is confirmed by the Iraqi
news agency al-Malaf Press, which says that opium is now being produced
around the towns of Khalis, Sa'adiya, Dain'ya and south of Baladruz,
pointing out that these are all areas where al-Qa'ida is strong.
The agency cites a local agricultural engineer identified as M S
al-Azawi as saying that local farmers got no support from the
government and could not compete with cheap imports of fruit and
vegetables. The price of fertiliser and fuel has also risen sharply. Mr
Azawi says: "The cultivation of opium is the likely solution [to these
problems]."
Al-Qa'ida is in control of many of the newly established opium farms
and has sometimes taken the land of farmers it has killed, said a local
source. At Buhriz, American military forces destroyed the opium farm
and drove off al-Qa'ida last year but it later returned. "No one can
get inside the farm because it is heavily guarded," said the source,
adding that the area devoted to opium in Diyala is still smaller than
that in southern Iraq around Amara and Majar al-Kabir.
After being harvested, the opium from Diyala is taken to Ramadi in
western Iraq. There are still no reports of heroin laboratories being
established in Iraq, unlike in Afghanistan.
Iraq has not been a major consumer of drugs but heroin from Afghanistan
has been transited from Iran and then taken to Basra from where it is
exported to the rich markets of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf.
Under Saddam Hussein, state security in Basra was widely believed to
control local drug smuggling through the city.
The growing and smuggling of opium will be difficult to stop in Iraq
because much of the country is controlled by criminalised militias.
American successes in Iraq over the past year have been largely through
encouraging the development of a 70,000-strong Sunni Arab militia, many
of whose members are former insurgents linked to protection rackets,
kidnapping and crime. Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the powerful Shia
militia, the Mehdi Army, says that criminals have infiltrated its
ranks.
The move of local warlords, both Sunni and Shia, into opium farming is
a menacing development in Iraq, where local political leaders are often
allied to gangsters. The theft of fuel, smuggling and control of
government facilities such as ports means that gangs are often very
rich. It is they, rather than impoverished farmers, who have taken the
lead in financing and organising opium production in Iraq.
Initial planting in fertile land west and south of Diwaniya around the
towns of Ash Shamiyah, al-Ghammas and Shinafiyah were said to have
faced problems because of the extreme heat and humidity. Al-Malaf Press
says that it has learnt that the experiments with opium poppy-growing
in Diyala have been successful.
Although opium has not been grown in many of these areas in Iraq in
recent history, some of the earliest written references to opium come
from ancient Iraq. It was known to the ancient Sumerians as early as
3400BC as the "Hul Gil" or "joy plant" and there are mentions of it on
clay tablets found in excavations at the city of Nippur just east of
Diwaniyah.
© 2008 Independent News and Media Limited