An Afghan’s Path From Ally of U.S. to Drug Suspect

In April 2005, federal law enforcement officials summoned reporters to a Manhattan news conference to announce the capture of an Afghan drug lord and Taliban ally. While boasting that he was a big catch — the Asian counterpart of the Colombian cocaine legend Pablo Escobar — the officials left out some puzzling details, including why the Afghan, Haji Bashir Noorzai, had risked arrest by coming to New York.

Now, with Mr. Noorzai’s case likely to come to trial this year, a fuller story about the American government’s dealings with him is emerging.

Soon after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Mr. Noorzai agreed to cooperate with American officials, who hoped he could lead them to hidden Taliban weapons and leaders, according to current and former government officials and Mr. Noorzai’s American lawyer. The relationship soured, but American officials tried to renew it in 2004. A year later, Mr. Noorzai was secretly indicted and lured to New York, where he was arrested after nearly two weeks of talks with law enforcement and counterterrorism officials in a hotel.

In fighting the war on terrorism, government officials have often accepted trade-offs in developing relationships with informants with questionable backgrounds who might prove useful. As with Mr. Noorzai, it is often not clear whether the benefits outweigh the costs.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/world/asia/02afghan.html?hp&ex=1170392400&en=6359b3a3a410170d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

in Afghanistan I have read and seen in documentaries many times, the US turns a blind eye to the poppies (probably because they are profiting in some way). So something else is going on here.
It looks like their concern now is that the money is being filtered to the Taliban. He is a former mujahadeen fighting against the former Soviet Union. That is the source of the people who formed the so called Al Qaeda. Something odd here, don't know what, it's hard to read between the lines. What's with the contractors working for the FBI and DEA? I didn't know they had contractors, doesn't that mean that they are not subject to the usual rules and regulations?