OLD TACTIC REVIVED FOR DRUG WAR

Marksmen Bag Speedy Boats

WASHINGTON -- Coast Guard sharpshooters are firing from helicopters to
knock out the engines of cocaine laden boats in the Caribbean in a tactic
unused since the Prohibition era, officials disclosed Monday.

The previously secret assaults have been employed in recent weeks using an
array of non lethal tactics to stop smugglers who use open hull,
low-profile boats called "Super Smugglers" or "Go Fasts" that carry barrels
of fuel and about a ton of cocaine each.

The sea encounters have led to the capture of 13 crew members from four
boats and have netted more than three tons of cocaine destined for the U.S.
market, said Barry McCaffrey White House drug control director. He said
those and other operations in the past year brought cocaine confiscation to
a record 53 tons, with a street value of $3.7 billion.

"We have made the drug smugglers afraid. We will now make them disappear,"
McCaffrey said at a news conference with other officials alongside one of
the specially equipped MH 90 Enforcer helicopters leased by the Coast Guard
for the operation. The helicopter and a sleek Coast Guard chase craft were
brought to the Transportation Department aboard flatbed trucks. Three of
the four "Super Smugglers" stopped so far were disabled in the past month.
None of the four crews fired back, Coast Guard officials said, but rules of
engagement allow lethal return fire if they do.

Sharpshooter Charlie Hopkins, nicknamed "El Diablo" because his .50 caliber
Robar rifle bears the serial number 999, fired three shots Aug. 16 that
disabled a vessel. "Depending on which way you hold it, it carries the sign
of the devil [666]," said Hopkins, 32, of Winslow, Maine. But he said he
aims his laser targeting sight only at the speeding crafts' engines. "We're
still humanitarian. We just want to stop the flow," he said, noting that
each helicopter carries a life raft in case a boat is accidentally blown up
or sunk.

Adm. James E. Loy, Coast Guard commandant, ruled out any chance that
commercial fishermen or pleasure boaters will be targeted by the
sharpshooters. Rules require identification and extensive warnings before
aggressive tactics are employed.

"This special show is not going to be coming to a theater near you," he
said as an assurance to private boaters.

Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, who oversees the Coast Guard, said
the interdiction effort, dubbed Operation New Frontier, will lead to other
high tech operations to counter drug smuggling.

Officials declined to detail the new tactics. But a Coast Guard background
briefing provided descriptions of the dramatic encounters, and videotape of
two incidents showed helicopters as they stopped speeding vessels.

The Coast Guard is not believed to have authorized firing from the air to
disable vessels since fixed wing aircraft were used to chase down and stop
shipments of illegal alcohol in the 1920s,

The latest use of non lethal force included machine gun firing across the
bows of boats, use a "stingball" that exploded into a shower of rubber
pellets, and deployment of a special net to entangle a boat's engines. Use
of sharpshooters is a last resort.

Loy admitted happily that although the new tactics are not intended to kill
or injure, they put the smuggler at increased danger. "If there's a new
risk on the part of the bad guys, that's terrific," he said.