The Obama administration has raised the stakes in Afghanistan by expanding the war to include a full-scale attack on illegal narcotics and has authorised the killing or capture of 50 drug lords, according to a report to be released on Tuesday.

The report, prepared for the US Senate foreign relations committee, says President Barack Obama has shifted dramatically from his earlier insistence that he was pursuing narrower goals than the Bush administration in Afghanistan. “The administration has raised the stakes by transforming the Afghan war from a limited intervention into a more ambitious and potentially risky counter-insurgency,” it says.