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The US Navy seized three vessels carrying drugs in the Persian Gulf in the last two weeks, and those seizures could provide the first concrete evidence that drug prohibition is helping to fund Al Qaeda. Two of the small wooden ships, known as dhows, were seized Saturday, with Navy personnel finding 130 pounds of methamphetamine on one and 75 pounds of heroin on the other. Five days earlier, a naval vessel intercepted another dhow, this one carrying nearly two tons of hashish.

According to unconfirmed reports from the US military, some of the crewmen on the boats could have connections to Al Qaeda. "We are investigating potential Al-Qaeda connections to these operations," Rear-Admiral Jim Stavridis, commander of the Enterprise aircraft carrier strike group, said in a brief statement. The seizures are "indicative of the need for continuing maritime patrol of the Gulf in order to stop the movement of terrorists, drugs and weapons."

"An initial investigation uncovered clear ties between the smuggling operation and Al-Qaeda," US Central Command said Monday in a statement from its Florida headquarters. It refused to provide any information to back up that claim.

Drug warriors in the US have been eager to link the tired and tarnished drug war with the shiny new "war on terror," and they are certain to leap on this alleged connection as further proof that, as one of the Office of National Drug Control Policy's widely ridiculed ads put it, drug users support terrorism. "Where do terrorists get their money?" one ad asked viewers. "If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you."

But according to James Gurule, a former US Treasury Department official involved in tracking terrorist finances, Al-Qaeda would find drug smuggling attractive "because of the huge profit margins involved. I wouldn't be surprised at all," he told the AP. Those profits, it should be noted, are a function of the black market created by global drug prohibition.

Maybe we need some new ads. How about: "Where do terrorists get their money? If you support drug prohibition, you're supporting terrorists."

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