U.S. targets Afghan drug lords tied to Taliban

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has placed 50 suspected Afghan drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban on a Pentagon list of people to be captured or killed, said a Senate report released on Monday.

A Pentagon spokesman said he had not seen the report by staff for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but that militants with links to the drug trade were legitimate targets.

The document, first reported in the New York Times, said major drug traffickers who help finance the insurgency in Afghanistan "are likely to find themselves in the crosshairs of the military."

"Some 50 of them are now officially on the target list to be killed or captured," the document said.

Afghanistan's opium industry produces more than 90 percent of the world's heroin and generates $3 billion a year in profits, it said.

The Taliban, which initially suppressed opium production when the Sunni Muslim movement ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, has since embraced the drug trade as a source of funding for its fight against U.S.-led forces.

The Times said the pursuit of Afghan drug lords reflected a shift in U.S. policy and was likely to raise legal concerns from some NATO countries with troops in Afghanistan.

Several people suspected of ties to drug trafficking have already been captured and others have been killed by the U.S. military since the policy went into effect earlier this year, the Times reported, citing a senior military official.

Pentagon spokesman Brian Whitman declined to describe any target lists. While the Pentagon did not conduct counter-narcotics operations, he said, "we are targeting terrorists that are linked to the drug trade."

"So where terrorists are using drugs to finance their operations, where terrorists are using or are involved in those drug labs, yes, that makes them legitimate targets," he said.

CUTTING OFF FUNDS

The Senate report said this was a dramatic change "for a military that once ignored the drug trade flourishing in front of its eyes. No longer are U.S. commanders arguing that going after the drug lords is not part of their mandate."

It said many military and civilian officials from the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries operating in Afghanistan believe the Taliban cannot be defeated without cutting off the money from Afghanistan's opium industry.

But the document also asked whether it was possible to slow money to the Afghan insurgency and whether the United States would be willing to provide the hundreds more civilians needed to transform a poppy-dominated Afghan economy into one where legitimate agriculture can thrive.

"Some observers fear that the moment for reversing the tide in Afghanistan has passed and even a narrow victory will remain out of reach, despite the larger American footprint," the report said.

Others were more hopeful but civilians and military officers interviewed spoke in terms of two, five or 10 years before they expected substantial progress, it said.

There are now about 101,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, with U.S. numbers at about 62,000. Washington has been pouring in thousands of extra troops this year and plans to increase the number to about 68,000 by year's end.

Research for the Senate report was conducted in Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, Senator John Kerry, chairman of the foreign relations panel, said in an introduction. His panel plans another round of hearings on Afghanistan and Pakistan this fall.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell and Adam Entous; Editing by John O'Callaghan)