KASHMIRI MILITANTS TAKING TO DRUG TRAFFICKING FOR FUNDS: US

WASHINGTON, MARCH 14: US officials have said terrorists belonging to
Kashmiri outfits, the LTTE and other organisations are increasingly turning
to drug trafficking as a source of funding as heightened international
efforts have diminished the state sponsors.

"Throughout the region of South Asia and the former Soviet Union, proximity
to cultivation and production, combined with the infrastructure provided by
the traffickers, has encourged mutually beneficial relationships between
terrorist groups and drug traffickers," Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary of
State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and Francis
Taylor, ambassador-at-large for counter-terrorism told the Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee.

Regarding Kashmiri militant groups, they said "these groups likely take
part in the drug trade to finance their activities given their proximity to
major production and refining sites and trafficking routes."

The "individual LTTE members and sympathisers worldwide traffic drugs -
particularly heroin - to raise money for their case, but there is no
evidence of official LTTE involvement in the drug trade," they said.

"The LTTE reportedly has close ties to drug trafficking networks in Burma,
and Tamil expatriates may carry drugs in exchange for training from Burma,
Pakistan and Afghanistan," the officers claimed.

"The relations between drug traffickers and terrorists benefit both. Drug
traffickers benefit from terrorists' military skills, weapons supply and
access to clandestine organisations," they said. "Terrorists gain a source
of revenue and expertise in illicit tansfer and laundering of proceeds from
illicit transactions", they added.

Taylor listed terrorist groups with known links to drug trafficking around
the world - from Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay to Afghanistan,
which, he said, accounts for more than 70 per cent of the world's supply of
opiates.

The Lebanese Hizbollah group, he said, is increasingly involved in drug
trafficking. Terrorist organisations in Europe and South-East Asia are also
tied to illicit drugs.

Asked about the prospect of paying Afghan farmers for their poppy crop and
then confiscating it, Beers said there are "real practical limits" to that
approach. (PTI)