U.S., UK push tougher NATO line on Afghan drugs

SANGIN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The abandoned villa of a Helmand province drugs baron may seem an odd venue to plot tactics to combat Afghanistan's opium trade.

Local lore tells of the Russian dancing girls who entertained its owner before he gave up partying and fled the British forces who since last year have used the villa as one of their bases in the country's drugs heartland.

Now alliance soldiers and diplomats gather round its emptied swimming pool to discuss a push by the United States and Britain for NATO to put more of its muscle into stemming a drugs industry they say has become a cash cow for insurgents.

"Counter-narcotics enforcement has not been front and centre. It has to be blended with military intelligence," Karen Tandy, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency said of patchy efforts by local authorities and Western backers so far to rein in a trade which permeates Afghan society.

"More needs to be done to target traffickers. Interdict them and you cut off a chunk of funding to the insurgents," she said during a visit by NATO officials to Sangin, the southern Afghan town notorious as an opium trading centre.

The United States and Britain want the alliance's 40,000 peacekeepers in the country to provide more of the vital intelligence, transport and security back-up needed to help under-resourced Afghan officials arrest drug kingpins.

The proposal will mean NATO getting more closely involved in so-called interdiction and is deeply sensitive in the 26-nation alliance, which has played a low-key role in counter-narcotics for fear of turning Afghan public opinion against its soldiers.

But with a U.N. report last month naming Afghanistan as the largest drugs producer since 19th century China, and Western concerns about a growing nexus between drugs traffickers and insurgents, pressure had been building for a change of stance.

"We are seeing more and more linkage with the insurgents. We are heading towards a narco-terror situation," said NATO's top commander of operations U.S. General John Craddock, adding he would personally raise the issue of a greater NATO role.

DRAIN ON RESOURCES?

August's report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime showed the area of Afghan land where opium poppies are grown rose 17 percent to 193,000 hectares this year, reflecting a failure of local and British-led international efforts so far to stem the trade.

Britain argues the report masked progress in the west and north, but that the violent insurgency in south Afghanistan has hampered the effort in provinces such as Helmand -- which by itself counts as the world's top opium producer.

Backers of a tougher stance insist that counter-narcotics operations could remain under Afghan leadership and that there would be no NATO role in eradication of poppies against the wishes of local farmers.

"What frightens some allies is the thought of NATO soldiers tearing up poppy plants. That is not what we are talking about here," said one senior NATO diplomat.

High-profile prosecutions of those traffickers would act as a deterrent and benefit the tarnished image of Afghan justice, widely perceived as marred by corruption, runs the argument.

Moreover by targeting traffickers who cream off the profits rather than the poppy farmers at the bottom of the supply chain, there is less risk of alienating local populations such as those in Sangin where poppy-growing is widely considered normal.

"They don't see it as wrong," said one soldier at the Sangin base of local perceptions to opium poppy. "Trying to convince farmers not to grow poppy would be like asking farmers in the Midwest (of the United States) not to grow wheat."

Other NATO nations will need convincing that a bigger role in interdiction operations will not suck up already scarce equipment, such as the helicopters and air transport that are vital to standard military operations in Afghanistan.

"It's possible you start competing for your assets," said Major General Frederik Meulman, an officer in the Dutch ISAF contingent.

In a first ISAF role in an interdiction operation, over 100 German troops provided air transport and security for Afghan and DEA agents to raid premises in the north Kunduz province in June, yielding arrests of two suspected drugs ringleaders.

Tandy acknowledged such operations take up NATO resources, but argued the pay-off was less violence to deal with.