Drugs From Afghanistan Flood Russia

MOSCOW (AP) - Heroin from Afghanistan is sweeping through Russia with drug trafficking operations extending across the nation's eleven time zones, a senior government official said Tuesday.

"A heroin attack from the south has become the most acute problem for us," said Alexander Mikhailov, deputy head of Russia's newly-established drug control committee.

He said that about 70 percent of heroin in Russia originated in Afghanistan, which accounts for about three quarters of the world's opium, the raw material for producing heroin. The opium production in Afghanistan has skyrocketed since the fall of the hardline Taliban regime, which successfully suppressed production.

After the U.S. troops flushed out the Taliban in late 2001, impoverished Afghan farmers quickly turned back to lucrative poppies as their main source of income.

"The U.S. military action in Afghanistan has effectively stirred a hornet's nest," Mikhailov said.

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