War on terror is also a war on drug traffic

Meanwhile, targeting Afghanistan's drug labs is complicated because the labs are downsizing and production often jumps between facilities. Key facets of the US plan include:

• A "robust" program to gather intelligence on drug production in Afghanistan, as well as steps to integrate intelligence and law enforcement information from US, allied, and Afghan sources, and rapidly distribute that to Afghan and British governments.

• Bolstering Afghan border police by expanding secure communications between border posts and the rest of the country, providing surveillance and detection equipment to help police detect smugglers, and constructing additional border checkpoints.

• Helping to develop a public affairs campaign inside Afghanistan to discourage poppy growing.

US forces will not, however, target poppy crops, sanction farmers, or take part in a wholesale eradication campaign, which Pentagon officials called unfeasible, due in part to the rugged terrain.

On a recent mission in Afghanistan's Paktika Province, US soldiers searched a farmer's home for insurgents, but said nothing about the farmer's source of income: poppies. "I grow flowers, and make about 14,000 rupees [$700] a year," said the farmer, who returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan after the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001.

US medics bandaged a sore on the farmer's finger, gave him some pain medication, and moved on.

Indeed, counternarcotics experts say Afghan poppy farmers today, as historically, earn only a tiny portion of the profits from the lucrative opium trade; far more goes to those who control the processing, smuggling, and sale of the drugs.

Afghanistan's former Taliban leader Mullah Omar allegedly banned poppy cultivation only after stockpiling tons of heroin to corner the market and increase his profits, according to US lawmakers.

Today, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, with less access to donations from Islamic extremists, are turning towards heroin profits to finance their operations, the lawmakers say.

"In my meetings with officials of the US, UK, Pakistani and Afghan governments, I learned that there are several heroin trafficking organizations operating in Afghanistan. At least three, the [Hizb-i Islami], the Taliban and Al Qaeda finance terror with profits from the sale of heroin," says Rep. Mark Kirk (R) of Illinois. One Afghan drug trafficker reportedly provides lieutenants of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan with 2,000 killograms of heroin valued at $28 million every eight weeks, he said.

US naval forces and marines in the Persian Gulf are also mounting operations to intercept drug shipments and in December seized $10 million worth of drugs, as well as agents believed to be linked to Al Qaeda.

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