Finally! We should have been doing this years ago. Disrupt their supply lines, and cut off their cash crop.
U.S. Targets Afghan Drug Lords With Taliban Ties
The Pentagon reportedly has created a target list of 50 Afghan drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban to be captured or killed as the White House refuses to rule out sending more U.S. troops.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has created a target list of 50 Afghan drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban to be captured or killed, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Citing interviews with two U.S. generals in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report to be released this week, the Times said the strategy is aimed at disrupting the flow of drug money used to finance Taliban insurgents.
The addition of drug lords on the “joint integrated prioritized target list” reflects a major shift in counternarcotics strategy and means the traffickers will be given the same target status as militant leaders.
“We have a list of 367 ‘kill or capture’ targets, including 50 nexus targets who link drugs and the insurgency,” a general reportedly told the committee staff, the Times said.
On Sunday, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser did not rule out adding more U.S. forces in Afghanistan to help turn around a war that he said is not now in crisis.
James Jones, a retired Marine general with experience in Afghanistan, said the United States will know “by the end of next year” whether the revamped war plan Obama announced in March is taking hold.
The administration is redefining how it will measure progress, with new benchmarks that reflect a redrawn strategy. An outline is expected next month.
Making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, Jones did little to dispel the growing expectation that Obama soon will be asked to supplement the 21,000 additional forces he already approved for Afghanistan this year.
“We won’t rule anything out,” but the new strategy is too fresh for a full evaluation, Jones said. “If things come up where we need to adjust one way or the other, and it involves troops or it involves more incentives … for economic development or better assistance to help the Afghan government function, we’ll do that.”
The Obama plan is supposed to combine a more vigorous military campaign against the Taliban with a commitment to protect Afghan civilians and starve the insurgents of sanctuary and popular support. It envisions a large development effort led by civilians, which has not fully happened, and a rapid expansion of the Afghan armed forces to eventually take over responsibility for security.
“If we can get that done … we will know that fairly quickly,” Jones said.
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