Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Times
October 23, 2007
Pg. 6
Opium seen funding terrorism
By Jerry Seper, Washington Times
The vast majority of "high value targets" for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Afghanistan are tied to the Taliban, which is using the country's rampant opium poppy cultivation to fund terrorist insurgencies.
"We must make it clear to the Afghan people that we, the international community and the Afghan government are serious about this drug trade and corresponding terrorism," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"We are not just eradicating a few opium fields or arresting some local, midlevel drug dealers to show something is being done, but that is not really changing the overall and deteriorating situation, while the big and powerful prosper and go free."
She outlined her concerns that not enough is being done to target drug kingpins and warlords in Afghanistan in a letter Friday to Ambassador Thomas Schweich, coordinator for counternarcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan.
Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen said Afghan drug producers and smugglers are using their illicit proceeds "to finance terrorism, the killing of coalition forces and corrupting the new Afghan democratic institutions." She said information from the DEA showed that of the agency's 21 high-value targets, 17 have links to the Taliban and that 16 of the 17 are grouped in the country's volatile south.
"Nothing like these numbers could better make the case of the links between drugs and terrorism in Afghanistan and the overlapping increased violence in the south," she said.
Last week, Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak acknowledged there are "more foreign fighters in Afghanistan now than ever before," citing Pakistan's offensive in pro-Taliban tribal areas along the border.
Gen. Wardak told editors and reporters at The Washington Times that the militants have been flooding in since Pakistan began an offensive in pro-Taliban tribal areas in the mountainous border region straddling the two countries.
He also acknowledged differences within the coalition over how best to fight the record cultivation of poppies, which has transformed Afghanistan into the world's largest producer of opium. U.S. officials are in favor of aerial spraying to eradicate the poppies, but Gen. Wardak said his government is agreed that aerial spraying would simply drive many farmers into the arms of the Taliban.
Assisting the Afghan government in improving interdiction capabilities and, specifically, taking down key high-value targets is a top priority of the U.S. government, which will spend $343 million in fiscal 2007 on the effort.
About 92 percent of the world's heroin comes from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the 2007 World Drug Report.
Last month, Gen. Dan McNeill, head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, estimated that Afghanistan's rampant opium poppy cultivation was funding up to 40 percent of the Taliban-led insurgency and, he said, the figure likely was low and could reach 60 percent.
October 23, 2007
Pg. 6
Opium seen funding terrorism
By Jerry Seper, Washington Times
The vast majority of "high value targets" for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Afghanistan are tied to the Taliban, which is using the country's rampant opium poppy cultivation to fund terrorist insurgencies.
"We must make it clear to the Afghan people that we, the international community and the Afghan government are serious about this drug trade and corresponding terrorism," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"We are not just eradicating a few opium fields or arresting some local, midlevel drug dealers to show something is being done, but that is not really changing the overall and deteriorating situation, while the big and powerful prosper and go free."
She outlined her concerns that not enough is being done to target drug kingpins and warlords in Afghanistan in a letter Friday to Ambassador Thomas Schweich, coordinator for counternarcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan.
Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen said Afghan drug producers and smugglers are using their illicit proceeds "to finance terrorism, the killing of coalition forces and corrupting the new Afghan democratic institutions." She said information from the DEA showed that of the agency's 21 high-value targets, 17 have links to the Taliban and that 16 of the 17 are grouped in the country's volatile south.
"Nothing like these numbers could better make the case of the links between drugs and terrorism in Afghanistan and the overlapping increased violence in the south," she said.
Last week, Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak acknowledged there are "more foreign fighters in Afghanistan now than ever before," citing Pakistan's offensive in pro-Taliban tribal areas along the border.
Gen. Wardak told editors and reporters at The Washington Times that the militants have been flooding in since Pakistan began an offensive in pro-Taliban tribal areas in the mountainous border region straddling the two countries.
He also acknowledged differences within the coalition over how best to fight the record cultivation of poppies, which has transformed Afghanistan into the world's largest producer of opium. U.S. officials are in favor of aerial spraying to eradicate the poppies, but Gen. Wardak said his government is agreed that aerial spraying would simply drive many farmers into the arms of the Taliban.
Assisting the Afghan government in improving interdiction capabilities and, specifically, taking down key high-value targets is a top priority of the U.S. government, which will spend $343 million in fiscal 2007 on the effort.
About 92 percent of the world's heroin comes from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the 2007 World Drug Report.
Last month, Gen. Dan McNeill, head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, estimated that Afghanistan's rampant opium poppy cultivation was funding up to 40 percent of the Taliban-led insurgency and, he said, the figure likely was low and could reach 60 percent.