US No Longer Using F-22s to Bomb Afghan Drug Labs, Watchdog Says
The U.S. military has quietly ended a once-touted bombing campaign against drug labs in Afghanistan aimed at cutting off Taliban funding, according to John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
"They're no longer doing it, which may indicate how effective it was," Sopko told defense reporters at a breakfast Wednesday.
He said the Operation Iron Tempest bombing campaign, begun in late 2017, "didn't have the intended effect of hitting the Taliban's purse and was probably a waste of resources."
U.S. Central Command referred questions on the bombing campaign to U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, which did not respond directly to whether the operation had been called off.
"United States Forces-Afghanistan's efforts are aimed at setting conditions for a political settlement and safeguarding our national interests," a spokesman said in an email. "The grand majority of our strikes are lethal strikes against the Taliban or ISIS."
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