U.S., Afghan forces target Taliban heroin factories in western provinces

KABUL, April 8 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. and NATO-led coalition, together with Afghan army air force, struck 11 Taliban narcotics production facilities in western Farah and Nimroz provinces within three days, the latest raid against the Taliban and its supply lines, the coalition forces said Sunday.

"The precision airstrikes, conducted by U.S. F-16s, A-10s and MQ-9s, are the first in western Afghanistan in support of the counter-revenue campaign designed to degrade the Taliban's primary means of funding its operations -- narcotic production," a coalition statement read, adding the strikes were launched on April 3 to April 5.

"The Taliban will have no safe havens. We will continue to exploit their networks and decimate their ability to develop narcotics," Gen. James Hecker, commander, 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force-Afghanistan, was quoted as saying in the statement.

"They have become a criminal organization that profits from selling drugs and use those funds to conduct operations that maim and kill Afghans. By cutting off the Taliban's economic lifelines, we also reduce their ability to continue these terrorist activities," he said.

The counter-revenue campaign, which began in November 2017, has continued without pause through the winter, impacting narcotics processing that generates an estimated 200 million U.S. dollars in revenue for the Taliban through production and taxation, the statement noted.

In 2017, some 9,000 tons of opium were produced in Afghanistan, a country notorious for growing opium-producing poppies for the illicit drug trade. Enditem