The U.S. Defense Department denies a Times report that it is targeting Afghan drug traffickers

The US military said it is careful to distinguish between Drug dealers who are terrorists and those who depend on drug traffic for their livehood.

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by Al Pessin

The U.S. Defense Department is denying a New York Times report that it is targeting Afghan drug traffickers, saying instead that it targets terrorists who work with the traffickers to finance terror operations.

The New York Times reported that 50 Afghan drug traffickers have been put on the U.S. target list, giving them the same priority as insurgent leaders. The Times says the decision is in a report being prepared by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, based partly on statements by two American generals serving in Afghanistan.

Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman acknowledged the link between the Afghan drug trade and violent groups, but said the U.S. military is careful to distinguish between Afghans who depend on the drug trade for their livelihood and terrorists who use the drug trade to finance attacks.

Whitman said the link between the Afghan drug trade and terror financing is well known. U.S. officials have estimated terrorists and insurgents get $80-million a year from drug trafficking. But Whitman says the fight against the violent groups is separate from the fight against the drug trade.

"We do not do or conduct counter-narcotics operations. That is a law enforcement activity," he said.

Whitman says civilian U.S. government agencies work with the Afghan government on the narcotics issue, while the U.S. military focuses on security.

The counter-narcotics effort is a sensitive subject in Afghanistan. U.S. officials acknowledge direct action, like destroying opium poppy crops, often turns Afghans against their government and foreign countries trying to help it. American and other international officials are taking a different approach to the problem, trying to provide alternate crops for the Afghan farmers, and protection from the insurgent and terrorist groups that try to force them to plant the lucrative poppies.