Despite the agency's own reports, a DEA spokesman denied that more heroin was reaching the United States from Afghanistan. "We are NOT seeing a nationwide spike in Afghanistan-based heroin," Garrison K. Courtney wrote in an e-mail to The Times.

The Department of Homeland Security also has found evidence of increasing Afghan heroin in this country. The agency reported skyrocketing numbers of seizures of heroin arriving at U.S. airports and seaports from India, not a significant heroin-producing country but a major transshipment point for Afghan drugs.

Afghanistan's drug surge (includes Map); CREDIT: Los Angeles Times; ECONOMICS: Afghan children roam a poppy field. The crop, which produces opium, constituted more than one- third of Afghanistan's gross domestic product this year, according to a World Bank report, and is helping fund a Taliban resurgence.; PHOTOGRAPHER: Adam Butler Associated Press; THE SOURCE: Opium poppies grow in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. This year, the nation supplied 90% of the world's illicit opium, the World Bank reported.; PHOTOGRAPHER: John Moore Getty Images