NATO to fight Afghan drugs

Oct 10, 2008, 10:39 GMT

A picture made available on 09 October 2008 shows Afghan workers unloading huge quantity of drugs after it was seized by the from volatile Kandahar province in Kandahar Afghanistan 08 October 2008. According the United Nations\' Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Afghanistan is responsible for almost 93 per cent of global opium production. EPA/HUMAYOUN SHIAB

Budapest - NATO defence ministers agreed Friday to target drugs traffickers and opium laboratories in Afghanistan as part of the alliance's efforts to undermine the Taliban insurgency.

Meeting in Budapest, ministers said NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would 'act, in concert with the Afghans, against facilities and facilitators supporting the insurgency,' NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.

The reference to the Afghan authorities addressed the concerns of several allies, among them Germany, Italy and Spain, who had argued that the fight against illegal drugs should be left to the local police.

In further concessions to sceptics, ministers agreed to ensure that civilian casualties be minimized, and that the anti-narcotics fight be conducted mainly in the southern provinces of Afghanistan, where cultivations and the insurgency both thrive.

Moreover, operations would be 'subject to the authorization of respective nations', meaning unwilling allies would be able to opt out.

NATO officials said the plan was 'consistent with the appropriate UN Security Council resolutions' and with the ISAF's existing operational plan and that it would be reviewed in February, when defence ministers next meet in Poland.

The deal follows a specific request from Afghan Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Wardak, who on Thursday had asked his NATO colleagues to help his government target drugs laboratories and seize imports of the chemicals that are needed to turn opium into heroin.

'We have asked NATO to support our efforts to destroy the laboratories and to interdict the chemical precursors which are coming from outside the country,' Wardak said.

NATO military commanders agree that more needs to be done to fight the opium and heroin trade, a view shared by most of the allies. The Taliban are thought to be pocketing between 60 and 80 million dollars per year from the sale of drugs.

'It is not only corrosive to good governance, it also directly funds the people that are killing Afghans, Americans and all our coalition partners,' US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Budapest on Thursday.

Experts say more than 90 per cent of the heroin circulating in Europe comes from Afghanistan.