US General David McKiernan briefs the media in Washington. Photo: APNATO Forces To Target Drug Lords Who Finance Taliban
-- The Age (Australia)
-- The Age (Australia)
NATO forces in Afghanistan will step up attacks on drug lords and narcotics traffickers who are supporting a Taliban insurgency that has rebounded in the past year, according to the top US commander in Afghanistan.
General David McKiernan also warned on Wednesday that US forces can't copy a central element of military success in Iraq — recruiting local tribes to support them — because the Afghan tribal structure has been shattered by 30 years of war.
He made it clear that NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, was not going to eradicate poppy crops. Afghanistan is the world's top grower of opium poppies, which are processed into heroin.
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My Comment: This is going to hurt. The best way to hurt the Taliban and their allies is through their pocket books .... but there will be an enormous amount of blow back from this policy.