U.S. TO HUNT DOWN AFGHAN DRUG LORDS TIED TO TALIBAN

WASHINGTON -- Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties
to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be
captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American
counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, according to a
Congressional study to be released this week.

United States military commanders have told Congress that they are
convinced that the policy is legal under the military's rules of
engagement and international law. They also said the move is an
essential part of their new plan to disrupt the flow of drug money
that is helping finance the Taliban insurgency.

In interviews with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is
releasing the report, two American generals serving in Afghanistan
said that major traffickers with proven links to the insurgency have
been put on the "joint integrated prioritized target list." That
means they have been given the same target status as insurgent
leaders, and can be captured or killed at any time.

The generals told Senate staff members that two credible sources and
substantial additional evidence were required before a trafficker was
placed on the list, and only those providing support to the
insurgency would be made targets.

Currently, they said, there are about 50 major traffickers who
contribute money to the Taliban on the list.

"We have a list of 367 'kill or capture' targets, including 50 nexus
targets who link drugs and the insurgency," one of the generals told
the committee staff. The generals were not identified in the Senate
report, which was obtained by The New York Times.

The shift in policy comes as the Obama administration, deep into the
war in Afghanistan, makes significant changes to its strategy for
dealing with that country's lucrative drug trade, which provides 90
percent of the world's heroin and has led to substantial government corruption.

The Senate report's disclosure of a hit list for drug traffickers may
lead to criticism in the United States over the expansion of the
military's mission, and NATO allies have already raised questions
about the strategy of killing individuals who are not traditional
military targets.

For years the American-led mission in Afghanistan had focused on
destroying poppy crops. Pentagon officials have said their new
emphasis is on weaning local farmers off the drug trade -- including
the possibility of paying them to grow nothing -- and going after the
drug runners and drug lords. But the Senate report is the first
account of a policy to actually place drug chieftains aligned with
the Taliban on a "kill or capture" list.

Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, would not comment on
the Senate report, but said that "there is a positive, well-known
connection between the drug trade and financing for the insurgency
and terrorism." Without directly addressing the existence of the
target list, he said that it was "important to clarify that we are
targeting terrorists with links to the drug trade, rather than
targeting drug traffickers with links to terrorism."

Several individuals suspected of ties to drug trafficking have
already been apprehended and others have been killed by the United
States military since the new policy went into effect earlier this
year, a senior military official with direct knowledge of the matter
said in an interview. Most of the targets are in southern and eastern
Afghanistan, where both the drug trade and the insurgency are the most intense.

One American military officer serving in Afghanistan described the
purpose of the target list for the Senate committee. "Our long-term
approach is to identify the regional drug figures," the unidentified
officer is quoted as saying in the Senate report. The goal, he said,
is to "persuade them to choose legitimacy, or remove them from the
battlefield."

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were
discussing delicate policy matters.

When Donald H. Rumsfeld was defense secretary, the Pentagon fiercely
resisted efforts to draw the United States military into supporting
counternarcotics efforts. Top military commanders feared that trying
to prevent drug trafficking would only antagonize corrupt regional
warlords whose support they needed, and might turn more of the
populace against American troops.

It was only in the last year or two of the Bush administration that
the United States began to recognize that the Taliban insurgency was
being revived with the help of drug money.

The policy of going after drug lords is likely to raise legal
concerns from some NATO countries that have troops in Afghanistan.
Several NATO countries initially questioned whether the new policy
would comply with international law.

"This was a hard sell in NATO," said retired Gen. John Craddock, who
was supreme allied commander of NATO forces until he retired in July.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the secretary general of NATO until last
month, told the Senate committee staff that to deal with the concerns
of other nations with troops in Afghanistan, safeguards had been put
in place to make sure the alliance remained within legal bounds while
pursuing drug traffickers. Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, is
also informed before a mission takes place, according to a senior
military official.

General Craddock said that some NATO countries were also concerned
that the new policy would draw the drug lords closer to the Taliban,
because they would turn to them for more protection. "But the
opposite is the case, since it weakens the Taliban, so they can't
provide that protection," General Craddock said. "If we continue to
push on this, we will see progress," he added. "It's causing them problems."

In a surprise, the Senate report reveals that the United States
intelligence community believes that the Taliban has been getting
less money from the drug trade than previous public studies have
suggested. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense
Intelligence Agency both estimate that the Taliban obtains about $70
million a year from drugs.

The Senate report found that American officials did not believe that
Afghan drug money was fueling Al Qaeda, which instead relies on
contributions from wealthy individuals and charities in Persian Gulf
countries, as well as aid organizations working inside Afghanistan.

But even with the new, more cautious estimates, the Taliban has
plenty of drug money to finance its relatively inexpensive
insurgency. Taliban foot soldiers are paid just $10 a day -- more if
they plant an improvised explosive device.

Not all those suspected of drug trafficking will end up on the
Pentagon's list. Intelligence gathered by the United States and
Afghanistan will more often be used for prosecutions, although
American officials are frustrated that they still have not been able
to negotiate an extradition treaty with the Afghan government.

A major unresolved problem in the counternarcotics strategy is the
fact that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains wide
open, and the Pakistanis are doing little to close down drug smuggling routes.

A senior American law enforcement official in the region is quoted in
the report as saying that cooperation with Pakistan on
counternarcotics is so poor that traffickers cross the border with impunity.

"We give them leads on targets," the official said in describing the
Pakistani government's counternarcotics tactics, adding, "We get
smiles, a decent cup of tea, occasional reheated sandwiches and
assertions of progress, and we all leave with smiles on our faces."