VZCZCXRO0613
OO RUEHDBU RUEHIK RUEHYG
DE RUEHBUL #2601/01 1581016
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 071016Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0701
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/OSD WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC//JF/UNMA//
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC//J3//
RHMFISS/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RHMFISS/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RUMICEA/JICCENT MACDILL AFB FL
RHMFIUU/COMSOCCENT MACDILL AFB FL
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 2597
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 2750
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 6033
RUEHUNV/USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA 1419

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 KABUL 002601 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/FO, SA/A, S/CR, SA/PAB, S/CT, 
EUR/RPM 
STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/DCHA/DG 
NSC FOR AHARRIMAN 
CENTCOM FOR CG CFC-A, CG CJTF-76, POLAD 
REL NATO/AUST/NZ/ISAF 
 
E.O. 12958 N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER SNAR AF
 
SUBJECT: PRT/KUNDUZ:  STRONG INDICATIONS THAT 
LOCAL DRUG LORDS BEHIND ATTACK IN BADAKHSHAN 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY.  There are strong indications 
that the May 30 attack on a USAID alternative 
livelihoods contractor in the remote river valley 
district of Darayeen in Badakhshan province was 
perpetrated by local drug lords who feared that 
the contractor was undermining their multimillion 
dollar poppy cultivation enterprise.  However, 
provincial law enforcement and intelligence 
officials -- many of whom themselves are 
suspected of being involved in drug trafficking 
and production -- are quick to deny any direct 
link between the attack and local drug lords. 
They still insist the crime was carried out by 
Taliban elements supported by Pakistan or by 
someone else from outside province, or was the 
accidental result of factional fighting within 
the district.  The political power of these local 
drug lords probably explains why Darayeen has 
never been targeted for eradication by the 
governor.  If Kabul decides to deploy the Afghan 
Eradication Force (AEF) to Darayeen, the AEF 
needs to go in with extra force and be prepared 
for violent resistance.  Any such deployment 
should be closely coordinated with PRT Faizabad 
and provincial authorities.  In the longer term, 
one way to break the hold that these drug lords 
have on isolated, remote river valleys in Argoo, 
Darayeen, and Teshkan is to open them up to 
greater access by building a major, paved road 
through their district centers.  A good 
opportunity to do that will be in the upcoming 
Kishim-Faizabad road project.  END SUMMARY. 
 
ATTACK ON PADCO 
--------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) On May 30, a vehicle from PADCO, a 
USAID contractor responsible for carrying out 
alternative livelihood programs in Badakhshan and 
Takhar provinces, was attacked with a powerful 
improvised explosive device (IED) that instantly 
killed an Afghan employee riding in the front 
right passenger seat and mortally injured the 
Afghan driver.  Miraculously, the two Americans 
riding in the back seat of the vehicle, one of 
whom was the deputy chief of party for PADCO, 
escaped with only minor injuries.  It is clear, 
however, that had the bomb, which appears to have 
been remotely detonated, exploded just a foot 
further to the rear of the unarmored Toyota Land 
Cruiser, the Americans would have been seriously 
injured, if not killed.  While there have been a 
number of attacks against PRT Faizabad and other 
military forces in Badakhshan over the past 
couple of years, civilians have been directly 
targeted very rarely. 
 
DARAYEEN: INDUSTRIAL-SCALE POPPY CULTIVATION 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) The attack on PADCO occurred in Darayeen 
district, a remote, high-altitude river valley in 
the mountains about three hours southwest of the 
provincial capital of Feyzabad, which can only be 
reached by transversing a narrow, steep dirt road. 
 
KABUL 00002601  002 OF 005 
 
 
PRToff had an opportunity to visit Darayeen, 
including the site of the explosion, the day 
after the attack, as part of previously scheduled 
German CIMIC patrol to the district.  There he 
found a PADCO vehicle destroyed almost beyond 
recognition and a valley almost completely 
devoted to the growing of poppy.  One sees many 
poppy fields in other parts of Takhar and 
Badakhshan, but not like in the Darayeen 
Valley.  Almost all the cultivated land in 
Darayeen valley is used for growing 
poppy.  Practically no other crops are grown.  In 
most other poppy-producing areas in the northeast, 
poppy accounts for 20-25 percent of the crop 
grown (a poppy patch next to a much larger wheat 
field, for example), but in Darayeen, the 
percentage is much higher.  IOM, who has been 
overseeing a DFID-funded road project in Darayeen 
over the past several months, reports that the 
contractor has had trouble finding local labor 
lately because everyone in the district is so 
preoccupied with growing poppy. 
 
¶4. (SBU) The planting of poppy appears to have 
been deliberately staggered so that the harvest 
will be spread over an extended period of 
time.  Some of the poppy was already 
being harvested, some was flowering, some was in 
the hook stage and some was still in the youthful 
"cabbage" state.  Ironically, a lot of the poppy 
is being irrigated by canals that were dug out 
and repaired through PADCO-funded cash-for-work 
programs.  Fields that are further from the river, 
and cannot be irrigated by canals, were 
being irrigated through expensive water pumps and 
pipes that normal farmers cannot 
afford.  According to PRT Faizabad, the so-called 
Upper Bazaar of the district center, also known 
as Shahr-e Safa, hosts an opium production 
facility and bazaar -- all just a few hundred 
meters from the site of the attack on PADCO.  IOM 
reports that the contractor for the road project 
in Darayeen has endured a number of security 
problems, including being shot at and catching 
someone trying to place an IED next to bridge it 
was building.  The district manager admitted to 
the contractor that he was under pressure from 
local poppy-growers to stop the road project 
because it was making the district too accessible 
to outsiders. 
 
SEEMINGLY UNDENIABLE CONNECTION 
------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) In short, one gets the impression 
that local drug lords have taken complete control 
of the Darayeen Valley and set up a centrally 
controlled industrial poppy cultivation 
system.  This view is shared by PRT Faizabad, the 
local UNAMA office and a number of NGOs and IOs 
based in Faizabad that have extensive experience 
in the area.  They report that the situation in 
other isolated river valleys in the neighboring 
districts of Argoo and Teshkan is similar.  Given 
the environment in Darayeen, therefore, it is 
 
KABUL 00002601  003 OF 005 
 
 
hard to escape the conclusion that the IED was a 
deliberate attack by drug lords who saw PADCO and 
its alternative livelihood programs as a threat 
to their multimillion dollar business.  PADCO had 
an office in Darayeen, which brought a 
steady stream of foreigners through what has 
historically been a remote 
and isolated district.  The drug lords clearly 
wanted PADCO and the foreigners 
out.  Unfortunately, it looks like they have 
succeeded, at least in one respect.  The PADCO 
head of party has indicated to PRToff that he 
plans to close the office in Darayeen.  On the 
other hand, the fact that PRT Faizabad went ahead 
with its previously scheduled CIMIC patrol to the 
district the day after the explosion sent a very 
good message that the international community 
will not be cowed by this attack.  The PRT plans 
to continue to carry out regular patrols and 
other operations in the area. 
 
AUTHORITIES BLAME OUTSIDERS, POLITICAL RIVALRIES 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) While most of the international 
community in Faizabad believes that local drug 
lords are the most likely perpetrators of the 
attack against PADCO, provincial law enforcement 
authorities -- many of whom are themselves 
suspected of being involved in drug production 
and trafficking -- are, not surprisingly, 
unwilling to acknowledge this.  PRToff called on 
Badakhshan Chief of Police Shahjahan July 1 to 
thank him for his quick response and assistance 
on the day of the attack (he personally escorted 
the two Americans back to Faizabad from Darayeen) 
and to press him to pursue a vigorous 
investigation to find those responsible.  In 
response to open-ended questions about who might 
have carried out the attack, Shahjahan claimed 
that police had found pieces of a metal pressure- 
cooker at the scene, indicating that the bomb had 
been work of well-known anti-government Taliban 
members operating in Badakhshan with the support 
of Pakistan.  In this connection, he reeled off 
four names: Abdul Allem Alawi, Qari Amir Allah, 
Sallamudin and Qari Saifudin.  Anticipating the 
next question, Shahjahan said that the police 
have not been able to arrest most of these people 
for the same reason that Osama bin Laden remains 
at large -- they have proved too difficult to 
find.  When PRToff noted that the chief of police 
had not mentioned any possible connection to 
poppy, Shahjahan gave a dismissive wave and said 
that the Taliban, terrorism and drugs were all 
interlinked. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) PRToff happened to be meeting with the 
Badakhshan director of NDS, Abdul Samad Yastali, 
when the news about the PADCO attack first 
arrived.  Yastali's theory was that the bomb had 
really been aimed at the new district manager in 
Darayeen, a former Hezb-e Islami commander, who 
was at odds with Jamiat adherents in the district. 
As with the chief of police, Yastali did not make 
 
KABUL 00002601  004 OF 005 
 
 
any connection between the attack and the fact 
that Darayeen is one of the biggest poppy-growing 
areas in the province. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) During his May 31 visit to Darayeen 
with the PRT CIMIC team, PRToff was greeted by 
District Police Chief Zirat Shah, who had assumed 
his position only two days earlier, after having 
served previously as district police chief in the 
southern district of Kuran Wa Munjan.  Shah 
reported that the local populace was very upset 
at the attack on PADCO and had been very 
appreciative of its work in the district. 
Therefore, he was pretty certain that the attack 
must have been perpetrated by somebody from 
outside of Badakhshan.  Like the others, he did 
not think the attack was related to poppy, since 
people associated PADCO with projects and not 
with eradication.  However, no one has come 
forward with any information, even though the IED 
was planted in an open area, visible from 360 
degrees for more than a kilometer. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) It is unlikely that provincial law 
enforcement authorities will, on their own, 
pursue this case and catch those responsible for 
the attack on PADCO.  Not only do the police lack 
the required technical skills and resources (in 
Darayeen, the 47 police officers and soldiers 
have no vehicles or radios, and only a handful of 
weapons), they appear to have been corrupted from 
top to bottom by drug money, as evidenced by 
their refusal to even countenance the possibility 
that local drug lords could be involved in the 
attack.  So far, unlike in the south of the 
country, PRT Faizabad sees no clear link between 
the Taliban and the opium economy in Badakhshan, 
which appears to be solely controlled by local 
drug lords. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) The power of these local drug lords 
may also explain why Darayeen has never been 
targeted for eradication by Governor Majid.  The 
governor's excuse has been that it is too hard to 
get up to Darayeen and there is plenty of poppy 
to eradicate in more accessible places like 
Kishim, but that is probably not the whole story. 
The fact is that the governor finds it easier to 
eradicate plots of poppy that individual farmers 
have grown on their own, than to take on the 
big drug lords in places like Darayeen. 
Unfortunately, on eradication, the governor seems 
to be playing a double game.  He appears to be 
aiming to do just enough to make Kabul think he 
is serious about eradication, but not enough to 
upset the powers-that-be in the province.  If 
Kabul decides to deploy the Afghan Eradication 
Force (AEF) to Darayeen, the AEF needs to go in 
with extra force and be prepared for violent 
resistance.  Any such deployment should be 
closely coordinated with PRT Feyzabad and 
provincial authorities.  The brutal attack on 
 
KABUL 00002601  005 OF 005 
 
 
PADCO seems to demonstrate the lengths the drug 
lords are willing to go to defend their empire in 
Darayeen. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) In the longer term, one way to break 
the hold that these drug lords have on isolated, 
remote river valleys in Argoo, Darayeen, and 
Teshkan is to open them up to greater access by 
building a major, paved road through their 
district centers.  A good opportunity to do that 
will be in the upcoming Kishim-Feyzabad road 
project.  Building the main road through Argoo, 
Darayeen and Teshkan (rather than following the 
current circuitous route along the Kowkcheh River) 
would not only bring significant improvements to 
these districts, but it would also cut more than 
35 kilometers off what is now a 112-kilometer 
trip. 
 
NEUMANN