BANGKOK, Thailand — More than 1,000 people have died in the first five weeks of Thailand's war on drugs, prompting widespread fears of extrajudicial executions and comparison with Afghanistan's harsh, former Taliban regime.

"The situation [in Thailand] is worse than when Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban, because the Taliban allowed the court to pass verdicts, but [in Thailand] drug suspects have been killed without trial," said Jaran Pakdithanakul, secretary to the Supreme Court president.

"We must stop blood-thirsty police officers," Mr. Jaran said.

"The government cannot claim the body count of 1,000 as an achievement," said Dejudom Krairit, deputy president of the Law Society of Thailand.

"It is a bloodstained denial of human rights," Mr. Dejudom said. "In this campaign against drug pushers, babies are being killed, innocent lives are being lost," said former foreign minister and opposition party member Surin Pitsuwan.

"There will be more innocent lives being cut down along the road of this campaign of terror," Mr. Surin added.

Stung by mounting criticism, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, senior government and police officials agreed most of the deaths were smugglers killing each other to silence potential informants.

Blacklists and Convenient Executions

Human rights officials and others, however, suspect most of the deaths are by police who target people on various secret "blacklists".

Angered by the published complaints and expressions of fear, a grim-faced Mr. Thaksin conceded police might be partly to blame.

"It is common knowledge that some police officers are involved in narcotics rings and might possibly kill ring members out of fear that they could be implicated," the prime minister said.

He promised to investigate all suspicious cases.

Forensic experts, meanwhile, said many bodies were being quickly cremated, without complete autopsies.

If criminals are killing each other on such a massive scale, then Thailand has become Southeast Asia's new "killing fields," according to critics of the drug war.

The prime minister, meanwhile, brushed aside warnings that foreign nations might cut aid to Thailand amid allegations of human rights abuses.

"If any country wants to cut aid because of what we are doing, frankly speaking, I don't really care," Mr. Thaksin said.

Thailand is home to countless people who use or abuse heroin and other drugs, but most of the current attention is focused on escalating methamphetamine use.

The Interior Ministry said at least 1,282 people reportedly died in drug-related killings since Feb. 1.

Only about 30 of the deaths were from police actions, mostly when people resisted capture, officials said.

Police have arrested thousands of suspects and vowed to round up more.

"A Strange Drug"-Army Chief of Staff

"It is a strange drug, this methamphetamine," Army Chief of Staff, General Veerachai Iamsaad, said in an interview.

"Other countries, besides Thailand, don't regard this as the [worst] drug, am I correct?

"Is methamphetamine [considered] an addictive drug in the U.S.? They don't really care much about methamphetamines," he said, referring to Americans who appear more concerned with heroin and cocaine.

"It is not a high-selling drug like others" in the United States. "I was there, I know. I was studying there. Demand was really low."

Gen. Veerachai, born in Bangkok in 1945, graduated from the Citadel Military College in Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1960s.

He is tasked with guarding Thailand's northwest border with Burma, from where a seemingly endless flow of drugs - mostly speed and heroin - originate.

"Six years ago, methamphetamine was only two or three baht [five to seven U.S. cents] for one methamphetamine tablet," the army chief of staff said.

Supply Disruption Creates a Market Opportunity

After Thai authorities disrupted supplies, speed virtually "disappeared," he added.

"Demand was still there, but supply was gone, so the price went up from two or three baht, to whatever price they could get.

"I imagine some smart people said, 'Hey, why trade heroin when the big powers concentrate on the threats of that drug? The [heroin] penalty is so high, and nobody looks at this [methamphetamines], and there is a lot of money in this. Why don't we turn and do this instead?' So that's what they did.

"Within a year, the influx just went out of proportion. And they push it. It is direct-sales, just like Amway. People don't have to be interested in it, people just come and push it."

Regional "smack" smugglers knew it was easier to make meth in one-room labs with cheap equipment - compared with the lengthy, more costly process of growing opium on mountainside plantations and converting the poppies' sticky black sap into heroin.

Washington and Bangkok have blamed minority ethnic Wa guerrillas in northern Burma for manufacturing most of the methamphetamines and heroin which floods Thailand.

The army chief of staff, however, said repetitious buying and selling by dealers to other dealers within Thailand was the real danger.

"I don't care too much about the Wa problem, I think more of the problem is in Thailand," Gen. Veerachai said.

Nowadays, methamphetamine pills illegally manufactured in Burma fetch only 10 baht, or 23 U.S. cents, on the Burma-Thai border, the general said.

"But the price of the drug inside the country [Thailand] is more than 100 baht. So, 100 baht of the problem is in Thailand," he said.

"If we can destroy this chain, the Wa is no problem."

The military was not involved in the spiraling death toll, however, because those encounters were between criminals or from police investigations, Gen. Veerachai said.

The interview with the army chief of staff came after he and other top brass briefed about 100 army officers about the military's efforts against cross-border drug smuggling.

Thailand's latest war on drugs began on Feb. 1 when the government set a target of making the country drug-free within three months.

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Richard S. Ehrlich has a Master's Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, and is the co-author of the classic book of epistolary history, "HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" -- Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews.

Richard S. Ehrlich's Asia news, non-fiction book, plus hundreds of photographs are available at his website http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent