U.S. and Afghan airstrikes destroy 22 drug labs in southern Afghanistan

Almost two dozen drug factories have been bombed by U.S. and Afghan air forces in the past four days in Afghanistan’s embattled southern Helmand province, a defence official said on Wednesday.
“Twenty two drug processing factories were destroyed,’’ Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the defence ministry, said.
Gen. John Nicholson said on Monday that U.S. and Afghan pilots started targeting drug factories on Sunday as part of a new joint offensive, the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
“The strikes are aimed at destroying the financial resources of Taliban militants,’’ Nicholson said, adding that such strikes would continue.
The Taliban are waging an ever-expanding war against the Afghan government and are said to control or influence about 13 per cent of the country again, while battling for another 30 per cent.
Helmand is both the centre of drug production in Afghanistan, producing 80 to 90 per cent of all opium in the world, and also the Taliban’s largest stronghold in the embattled country.
The group is reportedly said to earn between 200 and 400 million dollars a year through poppy plantations and drug smuggling.
Recently, the UN reported the largest opium harvest in the country’s history with an estimated 9,000 tons of opium, which is the base for heroin and other drugs.
“This is an 87 per cent increase compared to 2016, in Helmand alone, the areas under poppy cultivation increased by 79 per cent,’’ the report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes said. (dpa/NAN)

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