PORTAUPRINCE, Haiti (Reuter) American troops in Haiti
are helping the U.S. and local Coast Guard fight drug
trafficking, military, diplomatic and police sources said.

Special forces soldiers are taking part in the operations,
according to a senior Western diplomat and a military source
familiar with drug interdiction efforts.

Such activity goes beyond the official mission of U.S.
military personnel in Haiti, which military public affairs
officers say is solely to carry out infrastructure and
humanitarian projects and training exercises.

``It's clear the U.S. military is involved in going after
drug trafficking,'' said a senior Western diplomat. He said he
had spoken with U.S. special forces soldiers who told him they
were on an antidrug mission in the southern city of Jacmel.

``Ninety percent of U.S. interest in Haiti is drug
trafficking and boat people,'' said the diplomat. ``It's clear
the military presence in Haiti is not just building roads.''

A U.S. military source, who declined to be identified, also
said U.S. Navy Seals have been assisting in drug interdiction in
the northern port city of CapHaitien.

``They don't stay in Haiti, they stay on Roosevelt air
base,'' in Puerto Rico, the source said. ``It isn't too far to
fly in when they are brought in for drug operations.''

Some 20,000 U.S. troops restored Haiti's deposed president
JeanBertrand Aristide to power in 1994. The troops withdrew
from Haiti in March last year and were replaced by a U.N.
peacekeeping mission, although some 500 U.S. troops remain as
the U.S. Support Group charged with humanitarian work.

Haitian President Rene Preval and officials at the U.S.
embassy in PortauPrince declined to confirm or deny for the
record whether U.S. forces are taking part in such operations.

``I'm not saying anything about that,'' Preval told Reuters
in response to a question earlier this week.

A veteran drug smuggler told Reuters that the U.S. military
was the only force he was worried about on his regular speedboat
runs carrying cocaine.

On the roof of a PortauPrince hotel, the speedboat
navigator pulled hard on a marijuana joint, relaxing before
making his next run, and said he hoped to retire to golden years
on the beach in the next few months.

The tall old man has been outrunning the U.S. Coast Guard
for five years, speeding north to the Bahamas from the northern
port cities of PortdePaix and CapHaitien.

``I don't worry too much,'' he said. ``I can pay off the
ports and the police. Once I'm making the route, I listen to
radio signals to know if I'm being monitored.''

Asked if he had seen U.S. military personnel taking part in
drug interdiction efforts, he replied:
``I know they're out there.''

Haiti, with its weak police force, has become a major
transshipment point for drugs, the U.S. embassy says.

The country is used as a storage, repackaging and brokerage
site for cocaine, marijuana and possibly heroine moving from
Colombia, Central America and the Dominican Republic to the
United States.

The U.S. Coast Guard estimates that as much as 30 tonnes of
cocaine annually pass through Haiti to the United States.

Bales of cocaine are routinely shipped in or dropped from
planes into the ocean where they are picked up and loaded onto
ships or brought overland to the airport, according to police.

PortdePaix Police Chief St. Germain Rubens said he sees
drug ships arriving at an island off the coast just outside his
window, but that the police are illequiped to stop the trade.

``I see ships come in from Honduras and Colombia,'' he said.
''But our police can search a boat for an entire day and not
find the drugs.''

The planes that fly over and the ships that come in to
northern ports are now being monitored by U.S. Navy ships in the
ocean, the military source said.

United Nations police trainers, who also declined to be
named, confirmed the U.S. military operations and said they were
the result of increasing concern that the Haitian National
Police are becoming involved in the lucrative drug trade.

``You bring in the military as an extra means to monitor
planes coming in, and then set up an operation,'' one officer
said. ``This is due to a question of how high up the Haitian
police or government is involved in the trafficking.''