Soldiers criticise Afghan anti-drugs role

British military commanders in Afghanistan have privately condemned plans to use Helmand as the launch pad for Nato's controversial new anti-narcotics policy, The Independent has been told.

British forces have avoided getting involved in anti-drugs operations until now. They fear the new operation will create another tier of enemies, alongside the Taliban, among traffickers and poppy farmers. However, the recent Nato summit in Budapest agreed, on US insistence, to extend the Afghan mission to include attacking the narcotics trade.

Senior American diplomats say that Helmand, the base of UK operations, will be the chief target of the new policy. Patrick Moon, the US deputy under-secretary of state for South Asia, pointed out that opium production in Helmand has grown from around 25 per cent of the total Afghan production when British forces first arrived there in early 2006 to nearly 50 per cent.

Mr Moon, speaking during a recent visit to London, said: "We shall be focusing on Helmand on combating the drugs trade. We need to break the nexus between the drug barons and the Taliban who are cultivating opium to fund the insurgency. Helmand is obviously a problem because of the scale of opium production there."

The decision at Budapest to extend the Nato mandate to the drugs war came after pressure from Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, and General John Craddock, the American Supreme Commander of Nato, but reservations about the policy among some of the 26 nations contributing troops to Afghanistan was highlighted by the insertion of a caveat that Western troops have the authorisation of their own government, a provision which will allow dissenting nations to opt out of operations.

However, the UK has supported the US-sponsored move despite reservations among military commanders and diplomats. They fear that many of the Nato contributors will avoid drugs operations just as they have used other sets of caveats to avoid frontline action. This, they believe, will mean the already stretched 8,000-strong British force will have to carry out the bulk of the counter-narcotics missions.

In 2006, as British forces arrived in Helmand, the senior British officer in the province, Colonel Gordon Messenger of the Royal Marines, said: "There will be absolutely no Marines with scythes in a poppy field."

The policy at the time was that UK action would be limited to creating conditions to allow Afghan forces two years to tackle the drug problem. Brigadier Messenger, as he is now, is heading the 3 Commando Brigade taskforce which has just deployed to Helmand.

US and Nato officials say that any operation will be targeted against drug lords rather than farmers. But both Afghan and Western officials point out that operations against drug lords will depend on intelligence supplied by Afghans which, in the past, has proved unreliable, leading to civilian casualties and sparking anger against the West. They also point out that large-scale military action against the trade is bound to affect ordinary farmers.

British forces have been careful not to alienate local people by interfering with opium crops, often the only means of sustenance for farmers. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said last night: "The narcotics industry must be tackled on all fronts."