KABUL: Afghan and U.S. forces have killed 34 militants, almost half of them in air strikes, and made one of the country's largest drug hauls during an operation in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military has said.Almost 15 tonnes of narcotics including opium, heroin and morphine were seized over the course of the operation, which started on Tuesday, along with supplies of poppy seeds and drug refining products, the military said in a statement issued late on Thursday. The operation, which included air strikes that killed 16militants, was aimed at securing the Loy Cherah Bazaar in Marjeh city, a narcotics processing hub and militant stronghold in Helmand province.Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium, most of it in the Taliban's southern heartland. U.S.military officials have estimated the opium trade provides between $80 million and $400 million a year to the Taliban.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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