US bombs Taliban drug labs in Afghanistan
KABUL (AFP) — The US military has launched air strikes on drug-making laboratories in Afghanistan as part of a new joint strategy with Afghan forces to cut off funding for the Taliban, authorities said Monday.
Ten drug labs were destroyed in a series of aerial bombardments in the poppyrich southern province of Helmand — a Taliban stronghold — on Sunday night, said Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The joint operation came days after a UN report showed opium production in Afghanistan — a key source of funding for the Taliban’s 16-year insurgency — soared 87 percent this year as the area under poppy cultivation hit a record high.
Nicholson said targeting the drug labs would “hit the Taliban where it hurts” and warned of more strikes to follow.
“The strikes that were prosecuted last night will continue,” Nicholson told a news conference in Kabul, stressing that poppy farmers would not be targeted.
“We hit the labs where they turned poppy into heroin. We hit their storage facilities where they kept their final products, where they stockpiled their money and their command and control.”
Afghan A-29 Super Tucano attack planes destroyed two labs and US aircraft including B-52s and F-22s took out another eight, the general later told reporters in a call to the Pentagon.
He noted that 400 or 500 drug labs active are across the country.
“This is going to be steady pressure that’s going to stay up and we are not going to let up,” he said.
The Taliban profits from the illegal drug trade by taxing poppy farmers and traffickers across the wartorn country, pocketing an estimated $200 million a year, official data shows.
It was the first time the F-22 stealth fighter had conducted an air strike in Afghanistan, and Nicholson noted that the US Air Force now has more airpower at its disposal as operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria taper down.