U.S. Airstrikes in Afghanistan Take Aim at Taliban Opium Labs<br />20, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — American and Afghan warplanes conducted a series of strikes on Sunday night at what American officials said were Taliban<br />drug depots, as part of what is expected to be a sustained campaign targeting the group’s $200 million-a-year opium trade.<br />Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of the United States operations in Afghanistan, said<br />that B-52 bombers and F-22 warplanes took part in the strikes, the first such attacks under new authorities granted by President Trump to officials conducting the war in Afghanistan.<br />Taliban said that These criminals living in Afghanistan who are closely linked to the Taliban are responsible for 85 percent of the world’s opium.<br />But since they were toppled in 2001, and later became an insurgent group, mounting a war against the Afghanistan government<br />and its American sponsors, the Taliban have increasingly come to depend on the opium trade for funds.<br />The increase in processing means that the Taliban have been able to take a greater share of the $60 billion<br />that the global trade in the Afghan opium crop is estimated to be worth.<br />"Heroin’s become a global issue," General Nicholson told reporters on Monday during a teleconference news briefing from Afghanistan.
