By JOSH MEYER
As Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan edged e'er closer to becoming a narco-state v years ago, a squad of veteran U.S. officials inward Kabul presented the Obama management alongside a detailed programme to job U.S. courts to prosecute the Taliban commanders too allied drug lords who supplied to a greater extent than than ninety percent of the world’s heroin — including a growing amount fueling the nascent opioid crisis inward the United States. The plan, according to its authors, was both a way of halting the ruinous spread of narcotics unopen to the globe too a novel — too urgent — approach to confronting ongoing frustrations alongside the Taliban, whose drug profits were financing the growing insurgency too killing American troops. But the Obama administration’s deputy primary of mission inward Kabul, citing political concerns, ordered the programme to live shelved, according to a POLITICO investigation. Now, its authors — Drug Enforcement Administration agents too Justice Department legal advisers at the fourth dimension — are expressing anger over the decision, too hope that the Trump administration, which has followed a path like to erstwhile President Barack Obama’s inward Afghanistan, volition eventually adopt the programme every bit component division of its evolving strategy.
“This was the most effective too sustainable tool nosotros had for disrupting too dismantling Afghan drug trafficking organizations too separating them from the Taliban,” said Michael Marsac, the main architect of the programme every bit the DEA’s regional managing director for South West Asia at the time. “But it lies dormant, buried inward an obscure file room, all but forgotten.”
A senior Afghan safety official, M. Ashraf Haidari, also expressed anger at the Obama management when told nearly how the U.S. endeavour to indict Taliban narcotics kingpins was stopped dead inward its tracks sixteen months after it began.
“It brought us almost to the breaking point, position our elections into a fourth dimension of crisis, too so our economic scheme almost collapsed,” Haidari said of the drug coin funding the Taliban. “If that [operation] had continued, nosotros wouldn’t have got had this massive increase inward production too tillage every bit nosotros do now.”
A poppy farmer inward Laghman Province scores a poppy to extract raw opium inward Apr 2004. Afghan drug lords have got pledged fiscal back upwards to the Taliban inward telephone substitution for protection of their vast swaths of poppy too cannabis fields, drug processing labs too storage facilities. | Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
Poppy cultivation, heroin production, terrorist attacks too territory controlled past times the Taliban are at nowadays at or nigh tape highs. President Ashraf Ghani said late that Afghanistan’s armed forces — too the authorities itself — would live inward danger of imminent collapse, perhaps inside days, if U.S. assistance stops.
But patch President Donald Trump has sharply criticized Obama’s approach inward Afghanistan, his squad is using a like one, including a troop surge in conclusion twelvemonth too maybe another, and, recently, a willingness to engage inward peace talks alongside the Taliban.
The top-secret legal document that forms the plan’s foundation remains locked away inward a vault at the U.S. Embassy inward Kabul, too would bespeak to live updated to reverberate the pregnant expansion of the Taliban-led insurgency, said retired DEA agent John Seaman, who helped draft it every bit a senior law enforcement adviser for the Justice Department inward Kabul. But he said the organizational construction of the Taliban leadership has remained by too large the same.
Retired DEA agent too Justice Department contractor inward Kabul who distilled mountains of U.S. too Afghan evidence into a 940-page prosecution programme that detailed a decade-long complex conspiracy illustration against Taliban leaders too drug lords, traffickers, coin launderers too other alleged associates.
“We have got the powerfulness to select these folks out,” he said. “Here’s your route map, guys. All you lot bespeak to do is dust it off too it’s gear upwards to go.”
The plan, code-named Operation Reciprocity, was modeled after a legal strategy that the Justice Department began using a decade before against the cocaine-funded leftist FARC guerrillas inward Colombia, inward concert alongside armed forces too diplomatic efforts. The novel operation’s destination was to haul 26 suspects from Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan to the same New York courthouse where FARC leaders were prosecuted, plough them against each other too the broader insurgency, convict them on conspiracy charges too lock them away.
In Afghanistan, though, at that spot was exponentially to a greater extent than at stake inward what had larn America’s longest state of war — too the clock was ticking.
By the fourth dimension that plans for Operation Reciprocity reached fruition, inward May 2013, the conflict had toll U.S. taxpayers at to the lowest degree $686 billion. More than 2,000 American soldiers had given their lives for it. And the Obama management already had announced it would withdraw almost only past times the next year. Like the Bush White House before it, it had concluded that neither its armed forces forcefulness nor nuanced nation-building could uproot an insurgency that was financed past times deeply entrenched criminal networks that also had corrupted the Afghan authorities to its core.
“We looked at this every bit the best, if non the only way, of preventing Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan from becoming a narco-state,” said Seaman, referring to the government’s term for a province whose economic scheme is subject on the illegal drug trade. He described Operation Reciprocity every bit a fast, cost-effective too proven way of crippling the insurgency — akin to severing its caput from its trunk — before the U.S. handed over operations to the Afghan government. “Without it,” he said, “they didn’t have got a chance.”
A U.S soldier shows members of the Afghan media reconstruction projects inward Panjshir Province, due north of Kabul, inward Oct 2007. The U.S. has spent billions of taxpayer dollars a twelvemonth on its armed forces drive too reconstruction effort. But Congress earmarked only a tiny per centum of that spending for DEA efforts to counter the drug networks that bankroll the increasingly destructive attacks, records too interviews show. | Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
The document — a 240-page draft prosecution memo too 700 pages of supporting evidence — was the termination of 10 years of DEA investigations done inward conjunction alongside U.S. too allied armed forces forces, working alongside diplomatic mission legal advisers from the departments of Justice too State. In May 2013, it was endorsed past times the transcend Justice Department official inward Kabul, who recommended it live sent to DOJ’s specialized Terrorism too International Narcotics unit of measurement inward Manhattan. After agents flew inward from Kabul for a three-hour briefing, the unit of measurement enthusiastically accepted the illustration too assigned i of its best too most experienced prosecutors to spearhead it.
The timeline
1970s too 1980s
Drug Enforcement Administration agents investigate Afghanistan’s narcotics merchandise but evacuate inward 1979 when Soviet troops invade. Opium trafficking skyrockets alongside assist from U.S.-funded Pakistani agents, who deliver weapons to Afghan mujahedeen liberty fighters too assist them export their opium.
2002
The DEA leads Operation Containment, a coalition drive launched after 9/11 to thwart the global narcotics merchandise past times choking off the menstruation of heroin out of Afghanistan, the world’s leading opium producer, too helping the novel Kabul authorities develop drug enforcement capability.
2005
The DEA takes custody of the initiatory of all of several Taliban-affiliated Afghan heroin kingpins ultimately tried too convicted inward New York courts of overseeing international trafficking organizations importing millions of dollars of narcotics into the U.S. since 1990. Baz Mohammad told co-conspirators that Islamic law approved of their “jihad” to select Americans’ coin too kill them through heroin job too addiction.
2007
The DEA helps seize $3.5 billion inward narcotics inward Afghanistan, upwards from $1.6 billion inward 2005, but the drug merchandise continues to fuel a massive expansion of the Taliban insurgency too governmentwide corruption. DEA agents double downward on tactics they used against Colombia’s FARC narco-terrorists, including armed forces trend raids too targeting kingpins alongside U.S. indictments.
2009
Alarmed past times Afghanistan’s inability, or unwillingness, to job its ain courts to tackle drug kingpins, Congress funds the biggest-ever international surge of agents inward DEA history. More than lxxx agents ultimately deploy; iii are killed inward a Nov helicopter crash after a major drug raid.
2011
President Barack Obama announces a September 2014 U.S. troop withdrawal too cease to the U.S. interest inward the conflict. DEA Kabul shortly launches Operation Reciprocity inward hopes of rapidly decapitating the Taliban leadership before handing over operations to the Afghan government.
2013
DEA Kabul, alongside back upwards from Justice too State subdivision officials inward Afghanistan, unveils a 940-page narcoterrorism prosecution programme to indict 26 Taliban commanders too allied drug lords too essay them inward U.S. courts. After DOJ’s Terrorism too International Narcotics Unit inward New York approves it, a State Department diplomat inward Kabul finds out too shuts downward all investigative activity inward the case.
2016
DEA agents bust a multimillion-dollar Afghanistan-to-U.S. heroin-smuggling band that informants said had operated for decades. Presidential candidate Donald Trump vows to withdraw from Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan but, i time elected, says Taliban leaders too drug kingpins have got fostered twenty terrorist groups inward the province too threaten U.S. security.
2018
Senior Trump management officials see Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan to verbalize over an additional troop surge too fifty-fifty peace talks alongside the Taliban but include no plans for incorporating DEA law enforcement efforts every bit component division of their evolving Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan strategy.
“These are the most worthy of targets to pursue,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Fee, who had successfully prosecuted some of the FARC cases, wrote inward an e-mail to Seaman.
But before Fee could pack for his initiatory of all trip to Afghanistan, Operation Reciprocity was unopen down.
Its demise was non instantaneous. But the most pregnant blow, past times far, came on May 27, 2013, when the then-deputy primary of mission, Ambassador Tina Kaidanow, summoned Marsac too 2 transcend diplomatic mission officials supporting the programme to her office, too issued an immediate stand-down order.
In an interview, Kaidanow — currently the State Department‘s principal deputy assistant secretarial assistant for political-military affairs — said she didn’t remember details of the coming together or the specifics of the plan. But she confirmed that she felt blindsided past times such a politically sensitive too ambitious endeavour too the traction it had received at Justice. If she did number such an order, she said, it was because she — every bit the administration’s “eyes” inward Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan — had concerns it would undermine the White House’s broader strategy inward Afghanistan, including a drawdown that included the DEA every bit good every bit the military.
And the White House’s overriding priority ahead of the drawdown, she told POLITICO, was to job all tools at its disposal “to essay too respect a way to promote lasting stability inward Afghanistan,” alongside peace talks integral to that effort. “So the bottom line is it had to live factored into whatever else was going on,” she said of the Taliban indictment plan. “We await at that entire array of considerations too think, you lot know, does it brand sense inward the moment? Does it brand sense afterward on? Does it makes sense at all?”
State Department deputy primary of mission inward Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan who issued an immediate stand-down club halting Operation Reciprocity after discovering Justice Department prosecutors inward New York had approved edifice a narcoterrorism criminal conspiracy illustration against Taliban leader Mullah Omar too 25 transcend associates.
Its authors counter that Operation Reciprocity was designed inward accordance alongside that White House strategy, an assertion backed upwards past times interviews alongside electrical flow too erstwhile officials familiar alongside it too a review of authorities documents too congressional records. The authors believe the existent argue it was unopen downward was fears it would jeopardize the administration’s efforts to engage the Taliban inward peace talks too still-secret prisoner swap negotiations involving U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. They tried to revive the endeavour after Kaidanow transferred dorsum to Washington that fall, but past times then, they say, circumstances had changed too the projection never gained traction again.
Recently, Seaman came forrad to say that he too his erstwhile colleagues had all but given upwards on Operation Reciprocity until they discovered that the Trump management had established a exceptional chore forcefulness to review too resurrect Hezbollah drug trafficking cases after a POLITICO report disclosed that they were derailed past times the Obama administration’s determination to secure a nuclear bargain alongside Iran.
The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan squad members said at that spot are striking parallels betwixt their illustration too Project Cassandra, the DEA code bespeak the Hezbollah investigations, every bit good every bit nuclear trafficking cases disclosed inward some other POLITICO study as beingness derailed because of the Islamic Republic of Iran deal. Taken together, they said, the cases present a troubling pattern of thwarting international law-enforcement efforts to the overall detriment of U.S. national security.
Now they are hoping the Trump management volition review too revive Operation Reciprocity, too, maxim Trump’s Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan strategy cannot succeed without also incorporating an international law enforcement endeavour targeting the drug merchandise that helps maintain the Taliban inward business.
Besides helping the armed forces select strategic leaders off the battlefield, they said, it could provide much-needed leverage to finally select the militant grouping to the negotiating tabular array too also interruption upwards the criminal patronage networks undermining the Kabul government.
For now, though, the programme remains buried inward DEA files, too fifty-fifty most means leadership is unaware of it, several electrical flow too erstwhile means officials said. “I don’t think a lot of people fifty-fifty know that nosotros did this, that this programme is inward existence too is a feasible thing that tin live resurrected too completed,” said Marsac, whose 8 years inward too unopen to Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan for the DEA brand him i of the longest-serving Americans at that spot during the war.
MICHAEL MARSAC
Drug Enforcement Administration regional managing director inward Kabul who launched Operation Reciprocity to combine 10 years of DEA investigations tying Taliban leaders straight to the global heroin merchandise into i unprecedented prosecution inward U.S. courts before President Barack Obama withdrew American forces from Afghanistan.
Such an project would involve serious logistical challenges to capture drug lords too prosecute them inward the United States, non to holler the destabilizing termination on the Afghan economy, from farmers who grow poppies to corrupt authorities officials accustomed to bribes.
“We’ve made a bargain alongside the devil on many occasions, inward an endeavour non to antagonize anybody too boot the tin downward the road,” Marsac said. “But you’ve got to cutting that off. It powerfulness live painful at first, but it has to live confronted.”
Haidari, the director-general of Policy too Strategy for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, agrees too says it is something his province cannot yet do only on its own. Haidari late helped Pb a summit coming together inward Kabul of 23 countries, including the United States, inward proposing some other circular of peace talks alongside the Taliban every bit good every bit to a greater extent than armed forces aid. Last month, Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan had its initiatory of all official cease forcefulness out since the insurgency began, but it lasted only iii days — too demands that the Taliban travel out of the narcotics trafficking business organisation weren’t amidst the conditions.
Afghan counternarcotics official who lobbied Bush, Obama too Trump officials — by too large unsuccessfully — for to a greater extent than aggressive law enforcement efforts to select out drug kingpins too to stanch the menstruation of illicit narcotics proceeds that have got fueled the Taliban insurgency too corrupted the Kabul government.
Haidari said the missing ingredient inward the electrical flow scenario is a robust U.S. law enforcement endeavour to assist Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan starve the insurgency past times attacking the Taliban’s drug funding, which, he noted, was exactly what Operation Reciprocity was designed to do.
“That much coin automatically involves their leadership too shows that they are narco-terrorists. You have got to travel after them,” fifty-fifty if peace talks are also pursued, Haidari said. “If you lot desire to brand peace alongside them, too you lot discontinue going after them, so the DEA is no longer allowed to do what it needs to do. And that is exactly what happened.”
The alliance of the kingpins
Obama was upbeat inward his June 2011 address announcing a gradual cease to the U.S. state of war inward Afghanistan, saying, ”We’re starting this drawdown from a seat of strength.” The rugged province that i time provided Al Qaeda its haven no longer represented the same terrorist threat to the American people, Obama said, too U.S. too coalition forces had thwarted the insurgency’s momentum.
The DEA’s Marsac believed from his many years inward province that the province of affairs on the the world wasn’t nearly every bit stable every bit Obama suggested. And that things were getting worse, non better.
Obama was right that most of Al Qaeda’s remaining forces had left for neighboring Pakistan. But Taliban-controlled territory was at nowadays domicile to at to the lowest degree a dozen other terrorist groups alongside international aspirations. The Taliban itself had evolved, too, from an insular grouping without animus toward the U.S.A. into a lethal narco-terrorist regular army waging state of war against the American forces that had deposed it for its indirect job inward the 9/11 attacks.
To finance its insurgency, the Taliban was reaping anywhere from $100 i K one thousand to $350 i K one thousand a twelvemonth from its cutting of the narcotics merchandise inward hashish, opium, heroin too morphine, according to U.S., UN too other estimates. Much of the coin went to pay for weapons, explosives, soldiers for hire too bribes to corrupt authorities officials.
For decades, much of the region’s narcotics merchandise had been controlled past times the Quetta Alliance, a loose confederation of iii powerful tribal clans living inward the Pakistani border town of the same name. At a June 1998 summit, the clan leaders gathered secretly to approve some other alliance — alongside the Taliban, which ruled Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan at the time, according to classified U.S. news cited inward Operation Reciprocity legal documents.
CONTINUED VIOLENCE: H5N1 U.S. soldier too Afghan policemen (top) are seen through the broken window of a suicide bomber‘s car inward Kabul inward Feb 2013. Bottom left, an Afghan patient is wheeled on a trolley at Salang Hospital, due north of Kabul, inward September 2016. Bottom right, an Afghan amputee practices walking alongside her prosthetic leg at a Red Cross infirmary inward Kabul inward Apr 2016. President Ashraf Ghani said late that Afghanistan’s armed forces — too the authorities — would live inward danger of collapse, perhaps inside days, if U.S. assistance stops. | Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
Under the “Sincere Agreement,” the drug lords pledged their fiscal back upwards for the Taliban inward telephone substitution for protection of their vast swaths of poppy too cannabis fields, drug processing labs too storage facilities. The ties were solidified farther when the U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban after 9/11 too forced transcend commanders to flee to Quetta, where they formed a shura, or leadership council.
In the early on years of the U.S. occupation, the Pentagon too CIA cultivated influential Afghan tribal leaders who were non component division of the Quetta Alliance, fifty-fifty if they were deeply involved inward drug trafficking, inward club to plough them against the Taliban. That willingness to overlook drug trafficking was assisted past times their belief that the drugs were going almost only to Asia too Europe.
But a lot of Afghan heroin was also coming into the United States, indirectly, including through Canada too Mexico, according to DEA, Justice Department too congressional officials too documents. Over time, growing numbers of Americans addicted to legally prescribed opioids were finding an option inward the ample, but oftentimes deadly, narcotics provide on the streets.
Even every bit the trunk counts mounted inward Afghanistan, few Americans associated the state of war alongside growing opioid expiry too addiction rates inward the U.S., including, importantly, appropriators inward Congress. Lawmakers spent billions of taxpayer dollars annually on both the U.S. armed forces drive too reconstruction effort. But they earmarked only a tiny per centum of that for DEA efforts to counter the drug networks bankrolling the increasingly destructive attacks on both of them, records too interviews show.
As a result, every bit of 2003, the DEA deployed no to a greater extent than than 10 agents, 2 news analysts too i back upwards staff fellow member inward the entire country.
The agency’s primary mission was to disrupt too dismantle the most pregnant drug trafficking organizations posing a threat to the United States. Another mission was to educate Afghan authorities inward the nuts too bolts of counternarcotics function so that they could select on the drug networks themselves.
Over the side past times side iii years, every bit the U.S. armed forces cutting dorsum its presence inward Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan to focus on the Republic of Iraq War, the Taliban roared dorsum to life. The DEA agents too their Afghan protégés were left to stanch the menstruation of drug coin to the growing insurgency.
Even after the U.S. too NATO countries began adding troops inward 2006, the Afghan constabulary too armed forces counternarcotics forces were outgunned, outnumbered too outspent past times the drug traffickers too their Taliban protectors, according to documents too interviews.
Kabul’s criminal judge scheme remained a function inward progress. Afghan prosecutors, alongside assist from the DEA too the Justice Department, were putting away ninety percent of those charged alongside narcotics crimes. But most were two-bit drug runners whose convictions didn’t disrupt the menstruation of drug money, records show.
Washington was coming to the realization that the Kabul authorities lacked the institutional capacity too the political volition to select on the transcend drug lords, according to Rand Beers, who held a transcend anti-narcotics seat inward the George W. Bush administration.
Lucrative bribes had compromised constabulary too authorities officials from the precinct grade to the inner circle of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai. That meant the to a greater extent than senior that suspected drug traffickers were, the less successful U.S. authorities were inward pressuring the Afghans to human activity against them.
As had been the illustration inward Colombia, the drug kingpins were overseeing what had larn vertically integrated international criminal conglomerates that generated billions of dollars inward illicit annual proceeds. That made them, effectively, every bit good large for their domicile authorities to confront.
The only criminal judge scheme willing too able to handgrip such networks was the i inward the United States. By then, the U.S. Justice Department had indicted too prosecuted pregnant kingpins from Mexico, Thailand and, showtime inward 2002, dozens of FARC commanders too drug lords from Colombia.
In response, the DEA took 2 pages from its “Plan Colombia” playbook. It began embedding peculiarly trained too equipped drug agents inward armed forces units, to start developing cases against the heads of the trafficking networks. It also worked closely alongside peculiarly vetted Afghan counternarcotics agents. These Afghans were chosen past times DEA agents for their courage, sense too incorruptibility, too so polygraphed too monitored to maintain them honest.
Together, the vetted Afghans too their DEA mentors established a countrywide network of informants too undercover operatives that penetrated deeply into the transnational syndicates. The crown precious stone of that endeavour was a closely guarded electronic intercept program, inward which DEA agents showed their Afghan counterparts how to obtain court-approved warrants too develop the technical skills needed to eavesdrop on communications.
Buat lebih berguna, kongsi:
