Bin Laden Planned Development of High-Strength Heroin
Intelligence reports revealed that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorism network based in Afghanistan were working on a high-strength form of heroin to export to the United States and Western Europe, the New York Times reported Oct. 4.
According to a U.S. official, an informer and a foreign law-enforcement agency had warned American officials two years ago that bin Laden was recruiting chemists to develop high-potency heroin.
Bin Laden's plan, which was developed to retaliate against the U.S. missile attack against terrorist training camps in Afghanistan in 1998, was to create a super drug that would result in greater addiction and destruction than drugs available in Western cities.
There is no indication that the project is proceeding.
|
Border Drug Trafficking Picks Up Again
It's almost business as usual for drug traffickers at the Mexico-U.S. border, even though tighter security measures have been put in place following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Reuters reported Oct. 3.
"The drug traffickers probably thought the security was a temporary situation, but now they know it's not going away," said U.S. Customs spokesman Roger Maier. "They're getting back to work."
In the days following the attack, the added security measures appeared to discourage drug traffickers. U.S. Customs Service figures show that between Sept. 11 and Sept. 23 drug seizures dropped by nearly half along the 2,000-mile-long border.
Among the security measures are checkpoints at major crossing points. Customs and U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors now search every car and question every driver.
But in the last week, the drug business has picked up to more customary levels. In the last six days, officials made 159 drug seizures at the border, an increase from the 147 made during the same period last year.
|
