The chant for the martyrs lasted until sundown. Muslim clerics then stopped by each grave to place a lily and pour rose water on the thirsty soil.
"The hot sands of this province will never forget you," the preacher said Thursday during a special ceremony for slain police officers. "You lost your lives to wake up humanity to what is happening here."
PHOTO: AP
In the almost surreal borderlands between Iran and Afghanistan -- wind-sculpted outcrops, hungry buzzards, sand and gravel plains that melt into mirages -- a nasty battle has been going on for years. The struggle covers one of the world's main drug corridors: bringing opium and heroin to the West and, experts say, giving vital hard currency for Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and possibly the terrorist cells they shelter.
Iran has sought a neutral path following the Sept. 11 attacks -- condemning terrorism but rejecting any role in a US-led campaign against the Taliban or the suspected terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden.
But, in reality, Iran's front-line fight against drug trafficking has indirectly targeted the financial underpinnings of the Taliban since the puritanical Islamic regime took control in 1996.
Whatever the outcome of the West's duel with the Taliban, Iranian officials predict Afghanistan cannot achieve stable and accountable leadership unless the drug flow is systemically eroded with US and European help.
"Drugs are also a form a terrorism -- a terrorism against societies. We need real international determination to fight against this black devil ... We can't do it alone," said Mahdi Morrasaie, head of the anti-drug office for the Baluchestan Province in southeastern Iran.
Drug horde
The Taliban themselves have recently begun enforcing their ban on growing of opium poppies, bringing production down from 3,300 tonnes last year to perhaps 50 tonnes this year, according to a UN report due out later this month.
Production of opium poppy in the 10 percent of Afghanistan controlled by the opposition Northern Alliance stayed steady, meanwhile -- about 150 tonnes this year, according to the UN report.
The Taliban's ban applies only to production, however. International officials believe drug trading persists in Taliban-controlled areas from a stockpile estimated at 2,900 tonnes -- or about a year's supply. "The biggest drug horde in the world," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The impact of the Sept. 11 attacks are already being felt.
In the past few days, Morrasaie said Iranian patrols have confiscated 1.5 tonnes of heroin and its raw component, opium. The spike in seizures suggests what Western drug officials have feared: traffickers emptying storehouses before a possible military strike and flooding the European market with drugs.
Aggressive firepower
In the first six months of this year, Iranian anti-drug forces seized about 30 tonnes of drugs along the 1,000km border with Afghanistan, said Morrasaie. Deep trenches and dam-like barricades on mountain passes also seek to block the smugglers' vehicle convoys.
The traffickers, in return, have relied more on traditional camel caravans -- guarded by arsenals that include rocket-propelled gren-ades and heavy machine guns loaded with armor piercing rounds.
Iranian forces respond with equally aggressive firepower: Land Rovers fitted with pivoting machine guns and pickups toting 23mm cannons or heavy mortar batteries. Castle-like bunkers dot the barren border expanse like lonely sentinels.
"It's an all-out war," said Morrasaie.
More than 3,100 Iranian anti-drug personnel have been killed in the past 20 years -- some beheaded or burned after they were shot.
A senior police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said forces have recently been granted "shot-to-kill" authority without fear of exhaustive judicial inquiries.
Every Iranian city has murals and billboards remembering those killed in the 1980 through 1988 war with Iraq. In Zahedan, near the meeting point of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the images include police officers lost in the drug fight. Posters cites anti-drug messages from the Quran and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
"We have been fighting so many years against the drugs from Afghanistan," said Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh, the governor of the northeastern border province of Khorasan. "We would like to see a different face from our neighbor."
But Afghanistan's drug trade is deeply entrenched across the nation's patchwork of tribes and clans.
The Taliban, comprising the main Pashtun ethnic group, charge a tax on drug transport and cultivation of opium poppies, according to UN officials and others. This netted the Taliban nearly US$10 million last year, they say. Last year's harvest produced about 75 percent of the world market.
Then the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, issued his religious decree banning poppy growing. The main effect was to help send the price of opium and heroin skyrocketing. And it put no real dent in immediate supply.
Bankrolling terrorists
UN officials and others believe the drug profits may also help bankroll terrorist networks linked to bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network. Asa Hutchinson, head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said in Washington there's "obviously the potential for a stronger connection" between the Taliban and terrorist groups by possibly sharing drug profits.
"There is little doubt that the Taliban and those it helps, such as bin Laden and his followers, are beneficiaries of the drug trade," said Dawoud Hermidas-Bavand, a Tehran University expert on Afghanistan affairs.
But he wondered if the possible fall of the Taliban will cause any disruption to the drug flow.
"You would need a central government able to control the entire country," he said. "This is a very difficult task in a country like Afghanistan."
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