US will send troops to poppy-producing areas in Afghanistan

NYT reports that "The plan to send 20,000 Marines and soldiers into Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul Provinces this summer promises weeks and perhaps months of heavy fighting, since American officers expect the Taliban to vigorously defend what makes up the economic engine for the insurgency."
The Taliban are believed to make as much as $300 million every year from Afghanistan's opium trade. The opium trade now makes up nearly 60 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. Afghanistan accounts for about 90% of the world's heroin trade.