ISAF Joint Command - Afghanistan
2011-09-S-042

KABUL, Afghanistan (Sep. 18, 2011) – A combined Afghan and coalition patrol killed more than 10 insurgents and destroyed a narcotics laboratory during an operation in Baghran district, Helmand province, yesterday.
The facility is reported to be one of the largest heroin-producing facilities destroyed in Afghanistan in the past five years, and profits from it were responsible for financing insurgent attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.
Upon arriving in the area, the combined patrol was immediately engaged with sniper fire. The force returned fire, then moved to the laboratory and positively identified it as a narcotics-manufacturing facility. After ensuring no civilians were in the area, the force safely destroyed the facility.
The drug-producing lab contained more than 170 fifty-five gallon barrels of narcotics and related materials. The contents included more than 11,100 pounds (5,060 kilograms) of chemicals used in processing heroin, 4,305 gallons (16,297 litres) of morphine solution, 661 pounds (300 kilograms) of charcoal, 33 pounds (15 kilograms) of wet opium, three dry presses, three wet presses, 8.8 pounds (four kilograms) of pure heroin and one communications device.