US forces find 2.5 tonnes of marijuana in Afghan school

Kabul: Afghan and coalition troops found and destroyed 2.5 tonnes of marijuana in an abandoned school in southern Afghanistan, while coalition troops killed four militants elsewhere in the south, officials said on Sunday.

The marijuana, which was stored in 2-feet (0.6-metre) tall stacks, filled several rooms of a school in the Arghistan district of the southern province of Kandahar, a statement from US forces in Afghanistan said.

"No students or faculty were at the schoolhouse at the time of the discovery. The school's furniture had been taken out of the classrooms and left in the courtyard. The amount of rust on the furniture indicated the school may not have been used for its intended purpose for a prolonged period of time," the statement said.

Col. Jerry O'Hara, a US military spokesman, said using a school as a drug warehouse "is an attack on the future of all Afghanistan."

In Zabul province, meanwhile, coalition forces killed four armed militants and detained five suspects during an operation Saturday, the coalition said.

The operation targeted a Taliban militant "known to traffic weapons and coordinate roadside bomb attacks," the military said.