To disrupt the flow of drug money to the Taliban, the Pentagon has planned to 'kill or capture' 50 Afghan drug traffickers who help finance the insurgent group, a report says, reported PressTV.
According to a Congressional study to be released this week, US military commanders announced that the policy is legal under the military's rules of engagement and international law, the New York Times reported Sunday.
Two unnamed American generals serving in Afghanistan said that on a Pentagon list there are about 50 major traffickers who contribute money to the Taliban, the paper said.
"We have a list of 367 'kill or capture' targets, including 50 nexus targets who link drugs and the insurgency," one of the generals told the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which is releasing the report.
The new policy is in contrast with policies of former president George W. Bush which did not support counternarcotics efforts.
Only in the last year or two of the Bush administration, Washington began to recognize that the Taliban was being revived with the help of drug money.
The Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency both estimate that the Taliban obtains about $70 million a year from drugs. The war-torn country supplies more than 90 percent of the world's heroin.
While Afghanistan produced 185 tons of opium under the Taliban, following the US-led invasion drug production surged to 3,400 tons and by 2007, opium trade reached all-time high of 8,200 tons, according to UN statistics.
Afghan and Western officials blame Washington and its NATO allies for the sudden surge, saying they overlooked the drug problem for more than seven years after invasion of the country.
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