PENTAGON PUTS AFGHAN DRUG-TRAFFICKERS ON HITLIST

Targets to Be 'Captured or Killed' In Attempt to Disrupt Taliban Finances

Fifty Afghans who are suspected of drug trafficking and have ties with
the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured
or killed, according to a congressional study to be released this
week, the New York Times reported yesterday .

The move, reflecting a shift in US counter-narcotics strategy in
Afghanistan, is certain to provoke controversy.

US commanders, who described it an essential part of a plan to disrupt
the flow of drug money helping to finance the Taliban insurgency, are
reported to have told Congress they are convinced that the policy is
legal under the military's rules of engagement and international law.

However, targeting individuals in a deliberate assassination policy is
regarded by many Nato countries, and by many lawyers and military
advisers in Britain, as unlawful.

"This was a hard sell in Nato," said retired General John Craddock,
Nato's supreme allied commander until he retired in July, the New York
Times reported.

In interviews with the Senate foreign relations committee, two US
generals serving in Afghanistan said major traffickers with known
links to the insurgency had been put on the "joint integrated
prioritised target list". That means they have been given the same
target status as insurgent leaders, and can be captured or killed at
any time.

Currently, they said, there were 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 question of how to deal with the opium poppy harvest and drug
trade in Afghanistan, the source of 90% of the world's heroin, has
been a highly controversial issue for years. European allies, and
Britain in particular, opposed America's initial plan to destroy poppy
crops a policy British military commanders argued would simply drive
more Afghan farmers into the hands of the Taliban.

Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, was opposed to targeting
drug barons on the grounds that it would anger warlords he wanted as
allies.

More recently, the US and Britain have come round to the view that
their special forces and intelligence agencies should target drug
barons and their laboratories.

Several individuals suspected of ties to drug trafficking have already
been apprehended, and others have been killed by the US military since
the new policy went into effect earlier this year, a senior military
official told the New York Times.