Australian soldiers help to seize record amount of drug in Afghanistan

Australian soldiers help to seize record amount of drug in Afghanistan

Afghan National Security Forces supported by Australia's Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) seized and destroyed a record amount of drug products in Helmand province of Afghanistan, the Australia Department of Defense confirmed on Saturday.

Defense said the successful operation on 26 September has seized "a large quantity of narcotic manufacturing equipment and chemicals." It is estimated the ingredients would have been used to make heroin with a street value in excess of around 338 million U.S. dollars if sold in the United States.

The raid is part of broader operations to hit the budget of enemy combatants.

According to the Commanding Officer of the SOTG, Lieutenant Colonel G, who cannot be named for security reasons, the significant find during a counter-narcotics operation greatly exceeded the earlier drug destruction mission.

"This is one of the biggest narcotics busts by Afghan National Security Forces, comprising the National Interdiction Unit and the Air Interdiction Unit and Australian Special Operations Task Group, to date," he said in a statement released on Saturday. "In Afghan terms, the combined hauls will remove around 21 million U.S. dollars from directly funding the insurgency."

He said the destruction of such a large quantity of drug products will have a considerable effect on the insurgent operations in northern Helmand and west Uruzgan throughout the remainder of 2011 and into 2012.

Editor: Yamei Wang

English.news.cn   2011-10-01 15:43:34 FeedbackPrintRSS
CANBERRA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua)