http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/05/05/1923022.aspxDEA ON THE HUNT FOR AFGHAN DRUGS
May 05, 2009
Fighting the Taliban now includes a concerted effort to cut the organization's financial lifeline: the illegal drug trade. NBC News' Jim Maceda goes behind the scenes in Afghanistan as a U.S. DEA team carries out drug raids. Video...
http://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2009/april/apr202009.htmlU.S. helps snare top Afghan drug lords Sara A. Carter The Washington Times EXCLUSIVE: Monday,
April 20, 2009 U.S.-Afghan operations have led to the arrests of seven of Afghanistan's most wanted drug lords and
revealed the growing involvement of the Taliban in turning opium into heroin and morphine, Pentagon and Drug Enforcement Administration officials said.
U.S. and Afghan counternarcotics teams last month
demolished a poppy bazaar in the southern Helmand province — an open market where traffickers sold seeds to grow top-quality opium and
chemicals to turn raw opium into heroin.
The raid killed more than 40 Taliban militants in an eight-hour firefight, in which authorities
recovered hundreds of suicide vests, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons — including Russian-made PKM anti-aircraft weapons, said a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the operation. He asked not to be identified because of the nature of his work.
The successful raid, which has not previously been disclosed, and the arrests provide a bit of good news in a complicated struggle against drug trafficking — the key source of funding for the Taliban as it gears up to fight a surge of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Moreover, the Helmand battle demonstrated the importance of Afghan military and civilian police teams working with U.S. Special Forces and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to combat narcoterrorism, the U.S. official said.
Michael Braun, who was the DEA operations chief until late last year, said he could not comment specifically on last month's operation in
Helmand, which is considered the opium capital of Afghanistan.
But Mr. Braun said experiences in Afghanistan and Colombia "clearly point to the effectiveness of teaming the DEA and host-nation law enforcement with our military."
"This is how you fight 21st-century warfare in places like Afghanistan and win," he said.
The raid involved Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan, DEA's foreign-deployed advisory and support teams and their trainer, the U.S. Army Special Forces.
The list, provided by U.S. officials, of Afghan drug kingpins arrested since 2005 includes Bashir Noorzai, described by the State Department as one of five founders of the Taliban governing council, or shura, in Afghanistan.
Noorzai, who is scheduled for sentencing on drug charges on April 30, was arrested in 2005 in New York. He was lured there in hopes of a deal and is thought to have offered information to U.S. prosecutors about Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader who has been in hiding since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Other traffickers arrested include Baz Mohammed, another founder of the Taliban shura, who was extradited by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He was convicted in 2006 of drug conspiracy charges in the Southern District of New York and sentenced to 15 years in 2007.
While Afghanistan remains the world's largest source of opium and heroin
, the arrests have provided crucial information about the operations of complex South Asian drug syndicates and the links they have with extremists.
Narcotics profits have built a foundation for the Taliban to expand operations into extortion, kidnapping, natural resource smuggling and misappropriation of aid in Afghanistan, U.S. officials say.
"In Afghanistan, you can't separate drugs from terrorism," Mr. Braun said. "The drug traffickers are trying to destabilize the government, and it's the same for the terrorists. They all thrive in the same ungoverned space."
Mr. Braun, now a managing director of an international security consulting firm that works with U.S. authorities in Afghanistan, said no other illicit activity in Afghanistan "generates the kind of money that drugs produce."
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the Taliban earns $50 million to $70 million a year from taxing Afghan opium farmers and another $200 million to $400 million from processing and selling opiates.
The Taliban and al Qaeda use drug profits to purchase weapons and hire recruits, while using trafficking routes to move contraband and militants.
U.S. intelligence and DEA officials say the extremists also raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually through kidnapping, extortion and internal corruption — all of which puts money intended for rebuilding and humanitarian relief into militant hands.
DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said U.S. authorities "partner with the government of Afghanistan to go after these groups, who are directly or indirectly responsible for aiding the Taliban extremists and other terrorist organizations."
Mr. Payne said the DEA is planning on bolstering the number of agents in the region this year as part of the Obama administration's new strategy to defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
About $20 million for the expansion of DEA operations was part of last year's second "war time supplemental" budget enhancement ordered by the Bush administration.
The DEA estimates that 5 percent of
Afghan heroin is sold in the United States.
Most goes to Europe and Russia or is consumed in South Asia. In an interview in Kabul in December,
Army Maj. Gen. Michael Tucker, operations chief for international forces in Afghanistan, said the Afghan Interior Ministry has the main responsibility for reducing opium cultivation.
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Our soldiers do not and will not physically eradicate the poppy," he said. "We will not be out there with a sickle cutting down poppy plants."
NATO, however, can support the Afghan effort with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, he said.
"If this drug lab produces narcotics that benefit the insurgency, and I can prove it through intelligence, then it is a military target by definition, and I can blow it to smithereens," Gen. Tucker said. "If this person is linked to the nexus, then I can put that person on the 'kill or capture' list."
The raid in late March in southern Afghanistan is a case in point, revealing the extent of Taliban involvement in heroin production and its access to sophisticated weaponry. The PKM machine gun, for example, can be used as a light anti-aircraft weapon when it is put on an anti-aircraft mount — an ominous capability reminiscent of the Stingers that brought down Soviet helicopters in the 1980s and ultimately turned the tide in that war.
Afghan, U.S. and allied security forces "as they are hitting these [heroin] labs are finding more and more direct involvement of the Taliban with &… the refining of opium to heroin, heroin to morphine," said the U.S. official with knowledge of last month's operation.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said his agency works closely with sister agencies in the region and international partners "as a pre-emptive measure, the best way to combat international criminals and terrorists."
NATO commander sees progress in anti-drug operations in Afghanistan The Canadian Press
20 April 2009KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The acting commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan is hopeful of progress in the anti-narcotics offensive in the country that produces the bulk of the world's opium.
British Brig.-Gen David Hook told The Canadian Press on Sunday that rural Afghans will be able to abandon poppy cultivation gradually thanks to an expected boost in security and a
better market for agricultural crops. He says a military solution plays only a small part in the overall program by the Afghan government, provincial reconstruction teams and coalition troops to reduce the rural population's dependence on poppies.
Hook believes that NATO's role is to both ensure farmers plant grains, fruits and vegetables and that they have the infrastructure necessary to make those crops profitable. "The best example is two years ago it took two days to drive from Kandahar to (the Kabul market) because the road was so bad," Hook said.
"It's now been resurfaced so you can drive it in six hours."
He feels that NATO and Afghan security forces have a head start that will be bolstered by the arrival of the American troops.
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We'll be able to extend that security over a larger portion of the population, which will give us greater humanitarian space," he said.
"It will allow greater socio-economic development, better governance to grow, and you can see how that gives the local Afghan farmer the opportunity to turn to a legal crop."
NATO's anti-narcotics effort are on a positive path , he added.
"How far we get down that path is something that's very difficult to judge," Hook said, noting it depended on how quickly the coalition and Afghan security forces and government could establish development programs.
"It's not going to be solved in a year," he said. "But I believe we'll have made positive progress by this time next year."
Recently, there's been an overall reduction in poppy crops due to weather, eradication efforts, seed distribution programs, a boost in agricultural prices and depressed poppy prices worldwide, he noted.
"It's not just a result of what we've done."
Still, NATO's anti-drug plan has been more clearly defined, Hook said.
"Member countries crystallized their position last year on whether or not they support the anti-narcotics strategy."
NATO is only targeting drug trafficking linked directly to the Taliban, the brigadier-general noted, adding that it feeds an estimated $400 million US each year into the insurgency - one of the primary reasons the allied forces want to stamp out its production.
"Any other counter-narcotics effort is a law enforcement effort, not a military effort," he said
Poppy - used in heroin production - is cultivated mostly in southern Afghanistan where Canadian troops are stationed.
Operation Diesel, a raid by combined
British and Afghan forces in the Helmand province last February, netted 1,300 kilograms of raw opium, drug production paraphernalia, and weapons.
The Canadian Forces public relations office was unavailable for questions Sunday regarding Canada's role in the anti-narcotics operations.
Afghanistan produces 90 per cent of the world's opium, roughly 7,000 tonnes. Some
two million Afghans are involved in drug trafficking, according to the Washington Post. About 157,000 hectares of land were given over to poppy farming in 2008, much lower than the 190,000 hectares reported in 2007.
