November 7, 2011
DID YOU HEAR HE WON A PEACE PRIZE?:
D.E.A. Squads Extend Reach of Drug War (CHARLIE SAVAGE, 11/07/11, NY Times)Late on a moonless night last March, a plane smuggling nearly half a ton of cocaine touched down at a remote airstrip in Honduras. A heavily armed ground crew was waiting for it -- as were Honduran security forces. After a 20-minute firefight, a Honduran officer was wounded and two drug traffickers lay dead.
Several news outlets briefly reported the episode, mentioning that a Honduran official said the United States Drug Enforcement Administration had provided support. But none of the reports included a striking detail: that support consisted of an elite detachment of military-trained D.E.A. special agents who joined in the shootout, according to a person familiar with the episode.
The D.E.A. now has five commando-style squads it has been quietly deploying for the past several years to Western Hemisphere nations -- including Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Belize -- that are battling drug cartels, according to documents and interviews with law enforcement officials.
The program -- called FAST, for Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team -- was created during the George W. Bush administration to investigate Taliban-linked drug traffickers in Afghanistan. Beginning in 2008 and continuing under President Obama, it has expanded far beyond the war zone.
Posted by oj at November 7, 2011 9:12 AM
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