Abstract Treatment of difluoro or chloro fluoro-substituted benzyl bromides 5a-c with zinc dust in tetrahydro-furan leads to the corresponding benzylic zinc bromides 6a-c. These organometallics on treatment with chlorosubstituted heterocyclic esters 4A and 4B mediated by nickel catalysis undergo couplings to yield dihalobenzyl substituted heterocyclic esters 7Aa-c and 7Ba-c. Treatment of 4c with 6c under Pd catalysis leads to 7Cc. The acids 8, ...