Trump’s Air Campaign Prompting Taliban to Shut Down Heroin Labs

U.S. airstrikes targeting drug labs in Afghanistan reportedly drove a Taliban commander in Helmand, the most opium-producing region in the world and one of the group’s major strongholds, to move heroin factories away from urban areas into the mountains to avoid detection.

Mullah Manan, the Taliban shadow governor in Helmand, indicated to the Guardian on Monday that “any Taliban who permitted” the presence of drug and heroin “facilities” in public urban areas “would also be punished” for placing local residents at risk of getting bombed by the U.S. military, the newspaper reports.

The U.S. military maintains that no civilian casualties have resulted from the anti-opium campaign, the Guardian notes, adding that the American air campaign may have targeted non-Taliban locals involved in the illicit drug-processing business.

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