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Revolt in ULFA ranks over peace talks
Published: May 9, 2008 at 11:36 AM
NEW DELHI, May 9 (UPI) -- Indian intelligence agencies said a revolt is brewing in the insurgent United Liberation Front of Assam with a faction calling for talks with the government. -
India protests heavy firing from Pakistan
Published: May 9, 2008 at 11:29 AM
NEW DELHI, May 9 (UPI) -- India Friday lodged a strong protest with Pakistan Rangers following heavy firing from across the border that India says was used to send in militants. -
Turkey and Iraq hold bilateral talks
Published: May 9, 2008 at 11:24 AM
BAGHDAD, May 9 (UPI) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani welcomed a high-level delegation of Kurdish lawmakers from the Turkish Parliament Thursday in Iraqi Kurdistan.
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Dogs of War: Inherently governmental?
Published: May 9, 2008 at 12:03 PM
By DAVID ISENBERG
WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- Amid all the polemics over the use of private military and security contractors by the U.S. government there are two words one rarely sees, but they lie at the very heart of the debate: "inherently governmental." -
Iraq Press Roundup
Published: May 9, 2008 at 11:28 AM
By HIBA DAWOOD
UPI Correspondent
The Sunni Al Mashriq newspaper said Thursday in an editorial titled "The killing of 15 women" that the problem any militia in the world faces is that no matter how politically professional, organized and ideologically mature they are, they still might be accepted by one country and rejected by another. -
Analysis: Border force seeks recognition
Published: May 9, 2008 at 11:21 AM
By KUSHAL JEENA
UPI Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 9 (UPI) -- An Indian police force that guards the Indo-Tibetan border wants the federal Interior Ministry to give it the same status as other paramilitary security forces. -
Atlantic Eye: Hardly a done deal
Published: May 8, 2008 at 2:08 PM
By MARC S. ELLENBOGEN
UPI International Columnist
PRAGUE, Czech Republic, May 8 (UPI) -- Most Europeans see the U.S. presidential election as a done deal. They are quite surprised. They were convinced that Sen. Hillary Clinton was the sure thing. Now, and they are confused, they are expecting the inevitable: Sen. John McCain as president. -
Iraq Press Roundup
Published: May 7, 2008 at 3:29 PM
By HIBA DAWOOD
UPI Correspondent
Shebab Al Iraq newspaper Wednesday carried an editorial with the headline "Who is responsible for the atrocities in Sadr City?" -
U.S. looking into Iraq reconstruction contract requiring Iranian parts
Published: May 7, 2008 at 3:23 PM
By BEN LANDO
UPI Editor
WASHINGTON, May 7 (UPI) -- U.S. forces are investigating two contracts to build schools in northern Iraq that required bathroom fixtures to be supplied by Iran.
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Analysis: Iran's drug problems expanding
Published: Aug. 20, 2007 at 6:10 PM
By DEREK SANDS
UPI Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Iran’s long-running war on drugs, which has taken the lives of thousands of police officers, may be on course to get worse, with lawlessness in the southeast of the country and record opium cultivation in neighboring Afghanistan.
About 85 Africans were arrested in Iran on Sunday, according to Iranian news accounts, with more than 100 pounds of cocaine and heroine destined for export. Iran’s harsh drug laws will likely result in a death sentence for the smugglers.
The arrests come at a time when opium production in Afghanistan is at an all-time high this year, much of which is exported through Iran, according to the United Nations and the U.S. Department of State.
Iran grows almost none of its own opium, according to the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, but it has one of the world’s highest rates of opiate addiction and it is getting worse. The organization’s 2007 World Drug Report classified Iran as having one of the world’s largest increases in opiate addiction, and the government estimates there are 1.2 million drug abusers, which is 2.8 percent of people ages 15 to 64.
Many attribute the large number of drug abusers to an unusually young population and a large degree of unemployment, estimated at more than 11 percent by the International Monetary Fund.
Tehran is not ignoring this fact, but since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 the government has shifted its focus away from combating the demand for drugs with treatment programs and placed most of its emphasis on stopping the flow of drugs through the country, according to Abbas William Samii, an Iran expert who has written extensively about the country’s drug problems and is a regional analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses.
Trafficking has been a particular problem for the government in Tehran. About 53 percent of the opium that left Afghanistan in 2006 traveled through Iran. In fact, about 68 percent of the opium seized in the world in 2005 was taken in Iran, according to the United Nations, just under the average for the previous 16 years.
While many dispute the reliability of Iran’s seizure statistics, most agree that a great deal of these drugs come from Afghanistan through Pakistan, and into southeastern Iran, a region with a long history of volatility.
This volatility makes the job of interdiction a difficult one for security forces on the ground. In 2005 more than a quarter of drug seizures in Iran came by way of “armed clashes,” according to the Iranian Drug Control Headquarters.
Many of the traffickers travel in armed convoys, and the routes are largely controlled by local warlords, which has proved deadly for Iranian security forces, according to a report by the UNODC. Overall, between 1979 and 2006 about 3,600 Iranian police officers were killed in Iran’s war on drugs.
As recently as July, 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard where killed in an ambush by smugglers in the region, according to a report by Agence France-Press.
“What we see a lot of, what we see in the eastern provinces of Iran, a lot of what is done in the name of drug interdiction and law enforcement has always struck me as more akin to counter-insurgency tactics,” Samii said.
In the southeast, one of the poorest regions in Iran, the population has made its living by smuggling for many years, even prior to the revolution in 1979, according to Samii.
“They try to make a living however they can, and it often ends up in criminal activities,” he said.
However hard Tehran fights drugs smuggled in from Afghanistan, it is still facing a growing population of drug abusers at home.
“It is not just the opiates -- opium, heroin and morphine -- that originate in Afghanistan that are problems in Iran. Synthetic drugs, things like methamphetamines, ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines, those things too are becoming more and more commonplace in Iran,” Samii said.
When these synthetics first entered the country around 2003, the government simply denied the problem, according to Samii. But as it got worse, Tehran began to blame the problem on imports from Europe.
“It is no more just a supply-driven problem. I can see how drugs from Afghanistan, on the way to Europe, might get sold in Iran. But when you’ve got ecstasy originating in Europe, being manufactured there, being transported to Iran, that shows that it is a very much demand-driven issue,” Samii said.
UPI Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Iran’s long-running war on drugs, which has taken the lives of thousands of police officers, may be on course to get worse, with lawlessness in the southeast of the country and record opium cultivation in neighboring Afghanistan.
About 85 Africans were arrested in Iran on Sunday, according to Iranian news accounts, with more than 100 pounds of cocaine and heroine destined for export. Iran’s harsh drug laws will likely result in a death sentence for the smugglers.
The arrests come at a time when opium production in Afghanistan is at an all-time high this year, much of which is exported through Iran, according to the United Nations and the U.S. Department of State.
Iran grows almost none of its own opium, according to the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, but it has one of the world’s highest rates of opiate addiction and it is getting worse. The organization’s 2007 World Drug Report classified Iran as having one of the world’s largest increases in opiate addiction, and the government estimates there are 1.2 million drug abusers, which is 2.8 percent of people ages 15 to 64.
Many attribute the large number of drug abusers to an unusually young population and a large degree of unemployment, estimated at more than 11 percent by the International Monetary Fund.
Tehran is not ignoring this fact, but since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 the government has shifted its focus away from combating the demand for drugs with treatment programs and placed most of its emphasis on stopping the flow of drugs through the country, according to Abbas William Samii, an Iran expert who has written extensively about the country’s drug problems and is a regional analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses.
Trafficking has been a particular problem for the government in Tehran. About 53 percent of the opium that left Afghanistan in 2006 traveled through Iran. In fact, about 68 percent of the opium seized in the world in 2005 was taken in Iran, according to the United Nations, just under the average for the previous 16 years.
While many dispute the reliability of Iran’s seizure statistics, most agree that a great deal of these drugs come from Afghanistan through Pakistan, and into southeastern Iran, a region with a long history of volatility.
This volatility makes the job of interdiction a difficult one for security forces on the ground. In 2005 more than a quarter of drug seizures in Iran came by way of “armed clashes,” according to the Iranian Drug Control Headquarters.
Many of the traffickers travel in armed convoys, and the routes are largely controlled by local warlords, which has proved deadly for Iranian security forces, according to a report by the UNODC. Overall, between 1979 and 2006 about 3,600 Iranian police officers were killed in Iran’s war on drugs.
As recently as July, 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard where killed in an ambush by smugglers in the region, according to a report by Agence France-Press.
“What we see a lot of, what we see in the eastern provinces of Iran, a lot of what is done in the name of drug interdiction and law enforcement has always struck me as more akin to counter-insurgency tactics,” Samii said.
In the southeast, one of the poorest regions in Iran, the population has made its living by smuggling for many years, even prior to the revolution in 1979, according to Samii.
“They try to make a living however they can, and it often ends up in criminal activities,” he said.
However hard Tehran fights drugs smuggled in from Afghanistan, it is still facing a growing population of drug abusers at home.
“It is not just the opiates -- opium, heroin and morphine -- that originate in Afghanistan that are problems in Iran. Synthetic drugs, things like methamphetamines, ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines, those things too are becoming more and more commonplace in Iran,” Samii said.
When these synthetics first entered the country around 2003, the government simply denied the problem, according to Samii. But as it got worse, Tehran began to blame the problem on imports from Europe.
“It is no more just a supply-driven problem. I can see how drugs from Afghanistan, on the way to Europe, might get sold in Iran. But when you’ve got ecstasy originating in Europe, being manufactured there, being transported to Iran, that shows that it is a very much demand-driven issue,” Samii said.
© 2007 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
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