Federal authorities and the Afghanistan police have extradited a suspected Taliban-linked drug lord, the first case of a native of that country being surrendered to America for federal prosecution.

Haji Baz Mohammad, who is thought to have close ties to the Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups, has been indicted in America on charges that he and a co-defendant, Bashir Ahmad Rahmany, conspired to import more

than $25 million worth of heroin to America and other countries from Afghanistan since 1990.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia; the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Karen Tandy, and Afghan narcotics officials announced the unsealing of the indictment yesterday. Since 1991, law enforcement officials have seized more than $1.4 million of heroin from Mr. Mohammad’s organization in America, the indictment says.

With Mr. Mohammad’s extradition, the authorities have brought down one of the “most wanted, most powerful, and most dangerous” drug kingpins, Ms. Tandy said.

President Bush in June designated Mr. Mohammad as a foreign narcotics kingpin.

Mr. Mohammad allegedly told members of his organization in 1990 that selling heroin in America was a “jihad,” because they were taking money from Americans for drugs that were killing them.

Mr. Mohammad oversaw the drug operation, the indictment says, from the opium fields of the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan to processing laboratories in Afghanistan and Pakistan to arranging for the transportation of the goods to America. The drugs were allegedly smuggled inside suitcases, clothing, and containers. Other members of the drug ring distributed the product and sent millions of dollars in proceeds back to the organization in Afghanistan, which provided financial support to the Taliban in exchange for protection, according to the charges.

Mr. Mohammad was deported to America on Friday night and appeared in U.S. District Court in Manhattan yesterday. He pleaded not guilty and was detained, a spokeswoman for Mr. Garcia said. Mr. Mohammad will return to court November 14. His alleged colleague, Mr. Rahmany, was arrested in New York in July and is in custody awaiting trial.

Ms. Tandy said the authorities have arrested 13 members of the heroin importation ring since commencement of the investigation in 2001.

Mr. Mohammad was identified in 2001, indicted in December 2003, and arrested by Afghan authorities in January 2005.

The director general of the Afghanistan Counter Narcotics Police, Sayed Sadaat, said through a translator that he was pleased with the recent developments of the investigation and that he hoped there would be more arrests of drug traffickers in the future.

Not everyone hailed the historic extradition as a major accomplishment.

“The fact of the matter is, it’s no big deal,” Patrick Garvey, chairman of the Cavalry Security Group, a company specializing in military supplies and security assessment, said. “Given the relationship we have with the government of Afghanistan … the Afghanis are going to be much more amenable to dealing with these guys.”

A professor at New York University’s Center on Law and Security, David Golove, said that at face value the extradition did “seem like an advance,” but its significance is difficult to assess with questions lingering such as why Afghanistan agreed to the extradition now and why the country decided not to prosecute Mr. Mohammad.

An associate professor of political science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, George Andreopoulos, said that, foremost, extradition is a political act, not a legal one, and that the decision to extradite Mr. Mohammad was not surprising.