Cannabis smokers are unwittingly funding

Islamic radicals linked to guerrilla

attacks in Spain, Morocco and Algeria,

according to a joint investigation by

the Spanish and French secret services

The Maghreb is the world's top producer of hashish

The farmers themselves do not earn much

- a gram of hash costs about as much as a text message

"What do you expect?' said one local teacher

The people here are poor

They have been ignored for years

It's a good crop and there's a ready market"

Some 147kg of hashish was seized by Moroccan police and customs officers at the port of Tangier, stashed in a car bound for Spain on Wednesday, the state news agency reported.

The MAP news agency reported that the hashish was concealed in the dashboard, roof and gas tank of the car, registered in Spain.

Reports say police arrested the driver, identified only as a Moroccan citizen living in Spain.

Meanwhile, Morocco is among the world's top producers of hashish, the congealed resin of the cannabis plant, which according to the United Nations accounted for about $20 billion in 2005, the last time such figures were available.

In Morocco, it is illegal to produce hashish, but widely tolerated in the north Rif region where cannabis is the main source of income.

Recently, many European countries have pressed Morocco to crack down on smugglers who bring the drug into Europe.

It's a good thing the Berbers of the Rif have their illicit cannabis crop or they would be largely reduced to penury.

According to the Moroccan government's cannabis cultivation estimates, cannabis takes up one-quarter of all cultivated land in the region and 12% of irrigated land.

And as the government noted, "half of the low annual income or two-thirds of the rural population of the region" are dependent on the cannabis crop for an income.

Mohammed pulls out a pipe and packs it with hash. He lives in the centre of the Rif mountains, the world's biggest hash-producing area, the vast proportion of which is sold in Europe.

The electricity is part of a government programme and, like the new olive plantations, is aimed not only at developing the area but at convincing the local farmers that they should stop growing cannabis.

Though the new push to restrict cultivation is having some effect, there is work to be done - last year 120,000 hectares were sown with cannabis in and around the Rif.

The farmers themselves do not earn much - a gram of hash costs about as much as a text message. 'What do you expect?' said one local teacher.

'The people here are poor. They have been ignored for years. It's a good crop and there's a ready market.'

Along with major smuggling and people trafficking, hash is one of the less official links between Morocco and mainland Europe.

Cannabis smokers are unwittingly funding Islamist radicals linked to guerrilla attacks in Spain, Morocco and Algeria, according to a joint investigation by the Spanish and French secret services.

The finding will be seized on both by campaigners for a harsher clampdown on cannabis and by those who argue that legalisation is the only way to end a petty dealing trend that is dragging growing numbers of teenagers into crime.

The investigation by the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia and the Renseignements Generaux was launched after Spanish police found that the Islamists behind the March 2004 bombings in Madrid bought their explosives from former miners in return for blocks of hashish. The bombings claimed 191 lives.

Spain's role as a transit point for drugs was highlighted last week when Madrid hosted the US Drug Enforcement Agency's annual conference.

Experts heard not only that North African hashish was funding terrorism in Europe, but also that West Africa had become a new hub for South American cocaine shipments bound for Europe.

Morocco is the world's leading cannabis exporter, with an annual crop estimated to be worth at least £2bn.

Last month, the Moroccan navy seized three tonnes of Europe-bound hashish off the Mediterranean port of Nador. The same week, Spanish coastguards seized 4.3 tonnes of Moroccan resin off Ibiza.

The joint secret service investigation finds that hashish is part of a 'complex financing network' serving the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, affiliated since last year to al-Qaeda.

The group claimed responsibility for two bombings in Algiers on 11 April that killed 30 people and left 200 injured.

French terrorism expert Dominique Thomas said the link between drug dealing and Islamic armed resistance was not new:

'The issue stands at the core of divisions within al-Qaeda between those who believe that the end justifies the means and others who argue that drugs are incompatible with Islam.' Alex Duval Smith @ Observer