Nato troops to target figures in Afghan heroin trade

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer: disappointed about the lack of helicopters for Nato troops in Afghanistan. Photograph: Virginia Mayo/AP

NATO MEMBERS agreed yesterday to launch direct attacks on the Afghan drug trade, which is believed to channel more than €70 million to Taliban insurgents each year.

Meeting in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, Nato defence ministers said International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) troops would target drug laboratories, trafficking networks and leading figures in the opium and heroin trade, in response to requests from the Afghan government.

Nato countries will volunteer their soldiers for such missions, with the US and Britain particularly keen to disrupt the main source of funding for a Taliban insurgency that is growing in strength ahead of next year's crucial presidential elections.

A US spokesman said defence secretary Robert Gates was "extremely pleased that after two days of thoughtful discussion Nato has decided to allow ISAF forces to take on the drug traffickers who are fuelling the insurgency, destabilising Afghanistan and killing our troops".

Nato members also pledged to send seven frigates to the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia within two weeks, in response to a request from the UN World Food Programme, which is one of many organisations to suffer from rampant piracy in the region.

"Piracy is a serious problem for shipping in that area. It is also an immediate threat to the lives of the people in Somalia," said Nato spokesman James Appathurai.

"Substantially more than 40 per cent of the population depends on the food aid being delivered by ship." However, Nato secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he was "disappointed" that member states had failed to respond adequately to an appeal for more helicopters to support the 50,700-strong ISAF force in Afghanistan.

"There are thousands of helicopters in the Nato fleet and allies should definitely not be having this type of trouble getting a few hundred to theatre to support our operations," he said.

"The bottom line is we need political will."

Mr de Hoop Scheffer also rejected suggestions that the Nato-Russia Council might re-convene for the first time since Moscow's military intervention in Georgia.

"We are not at that stage yet," he said.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times