November 04, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 5, 1429

KABUL, Nov 3: Coalition and Afghan troops hunting for Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan discovered a drug lab and destroyed more than 40 tons of hashish on Monday, officials said.

The joint force discovered the drug facility in Kandahar province’s Spin Boldak district, which borders Pakistan, the US military said in a statement.

“Today’s discovery clearly demonstrated the links between the Taliban and drug trafficking,” said Col. Greg Julian, the spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan.

“The huge amount of drugs destroyed today will greatly hinder the Taliban’s ability to fund their ongoing, hopeless struggle to subjugate the Afghan people,” Julian said in a statement.

Gen Abdul Raziq, the border police commander for southern Afghanistan, said the drugs were found in the basement of a compound in Nawa Kili village. He said American military helicopters were used during the raid.

The area where the drugs were discovered is littered with small drug labs. Drug runners transporting Afghanistan’s major cash crop -- opium -- over the border with Pakistan use the region as a staging ground.

Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium, the main ingredient for the production of heroin. But the country also grows large quantities of cannabis, the plant used to produce hashish and marijuana.

US, UN and other Western officials say that some of the proceeds from the multibillion dollar drug trade -- perhaps as much as $100 million a year -- go to fund the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan. But some government officials are believed to be involved in the lucrative trade as well.

US Gen. David McKiernan, the top Nato commander in Afghanistan, said last month that the Nato-led military in Afghanistan can attack drug labs or drug runners when a link can be established between the narcotics trafficker and the insurgency. He called the approach a “force protection issue.”

“That should send a very strong message to those involved in the narcotics system in Afghanistan, that where they have relations with the insurgency, that will not be acceptable and we will treat that as a security issue,” McKiernan said.—AP