(NSI News Source Info) January 30, 2009: A directive ordering Nato commanders to begin directly targeting drug smugglers and heroin factories in Afghanistan is being resisted by senior officers in the country.
The directive, issued by US General John Craddock, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (Saceur), and leaked to the German news weekly Der Spiegel, orders a significant expansion of the drugs war by Nato forces. It orders that drug smugglers should be attacked even when there is no evidence that their activities are linked to the Taleban insurgency — meaning that Nato forces would for the first time deliberately strike at civilians engaged in purely criminal activity.
Previously, operations were limited to smugglers against whom there was clear evidence of support for the Taleban with money, arms or men. 
A Pakistani tribesman works in a poppy field at the Muhmand Agency tribal area close to the Afghan border, some 80 kms north of Peshawar on April 24, 2008. Poppy cultivators in Pakistan are incensed over the government drive to eradicate poppy fields whilst the United Nations Drug Control Programme declared the country poppy-free in 2000, but growers have been trying to restart cultivation of the lucrative crop in parts of tribal territories in Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province.
It is “no longer necessary to produce intelligence or other evidence that each particular drug trafficker or narcotics facility in Afghanistan meets the criteria of being a military objective”, General Craddock writes. Drug traffickers and narcotics facilities are “inextricably linked to the Opposing Military Forces, and may be attacked”.
The directive is the result of a meeting of Nato defence ministers last October and was sent to ground commanders on January 5. Egon Ramms, the German leader of Nato command in Brunssum in The Netherlands, who is in charge of the alliance’s International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan, and General David McKiernan, its commander on the ground, are opposed to the directive, Der Spiegel says.
It also publishes extracts from a highly critical response to the directive from General McKiernan’s office in Kabul. It accuses General Craddock of attempting to “seriously undermine the commitment Isaf has made to the Afghan people to restrain our use of force and avoid civilian casualties”.
Major Marty O’Donnell, an Isaf spokesman, said: “We don’t comment on leaked or classified documents.” However, the substance of the story was independently confirmed to The Times by Western officials in Kabul.
The claims come amid renewed speculation that the US Government wishes to press its Afghan counterpart to begin ground-based spraying of poppy fields.
A Pakistani tribesman works in a poppy field at the Muhmand Agency tribal area close to the Afghan border, some 80 kms north of Peshawar on April 24, 2008. Poppy cultivators in Pakistan are incensed over the government drive to eradicate poppy fields whilst the United Nations Drug Control Programme declared the country poppy-free in 2000, but growers have been trying to restart cultivation of the lucrative crop in parts of tribal territories in Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province.
It is “no longer necessary to produce intelligence or other evidence that each particular drug trafficker or narcotics facility in Afghanistan meets the criteria of being a military objective”, General Craddock writes. Drug traffickers and narcotics facilities are “inextricably linked to the Opposing Military Forces, and may be attacked”.
The directive is the result of a meeting of Nato defence ministers last October and was sent to ground commanders on January 5. Egon Ramms, the German leader of Nato command in Brunssum in The Netherlands, who is in charge of the alliance’s International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan, and General David McKiernan, its commander on the ground, are opposed to the directive, Der Spiegel says.
It also publishes extracts from a highly critical response to the directive from General McKiernan’s office in Kabul. It accuses General Craddock of attempting to “seriously undermine the commitment Isaf has made to the Afghan people to restrain our use of force and avoid civilian casualties”.
Major Marty O’Donnell, an Isaf spokesman, said: “We don’t comment on leaked or classified documents.” However, the substance of the story was independently confirmed to The Times by Western officials in Kabul.
The claims come amid renewed speculation that the US Government wishes to press its Afghan counterpart to begin ground-based spraying of poppy fields.
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