Tougher NATO line sought on Afghan drugs

By Mark John

SANGIN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The abandoned villa of a Helmand province drugs baron may seem an odd venue to plot tactics to combat Afghanistan's opium trade.

Local lore tells of the Russian dancing girls who entertained its owner before he gave up partying and fled the British forces who since last year have used the villa as one of their bases in the country's drugs heartland.

Now alliance soldiers and diplomats gather round its emptied swimming pool to discuss a push by the United States and Britain for NATO to put more of its muscle into stemming a drugs industry they say has become a cash cow for insurgents.

"Counter-narcotics enforcement has not been front and centre. It has to be blended with military intelligence," Karen Tandy, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency said of patchy efforts by local authorities and Western backers so far to rein in a trade which permeates Afghan society.

"More needs to be done to target traffickers. Interdict them and you cut off a chunk of funding to the insurgents," she said during a visit by NATO officials to Sangin, the southern Afghan town notorious as an opium trading centre.

The United States and Britain want the alliance's 40,000 peacekeepers in the country to provide more of the vital intelligence, transport and security back-up needed to help under-resourced Afghan officials arrest drug kingpins.

The proposal will mean NATO getting more closely involved in so-called interdiction and is deeply sensitive in the 26-nation alliance, which has played a low-key role in counter-narcotics for fear of turning Afghan public opinion against its soldiers.

But with a U.N. report last month naming Afghanistan as the largest drugs producer since 19th century China, and Western concerns about a growing nexus between drugs traffickers and insurgents, pressure had been building for a change of stance.