Kabul ? U.S. Marines and Afghan forces have found and destroyed hundreds of tons of poppy seeds, opium and heroin in southern Afghanistan this month in raids that a top American official said show the new U.S. counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan is working.

U.S. and NATO troops are attacking drug warehouses in Afghanistan for the first time this year, a new strategy to counter the country’s booming opium poppy and heroin trade. NATO defense ministers approved the targeted drug raids late last year, saying the link between Taliban insurgents and drug barons was clear.

U.N. officials say Taliban fighters reap hundreds of millions of dollars from the drug trade each year, profits used to fund the insurgency.

The U.S. announced last month it would no longer support the destruction of individual farmers’ poppy plants, and instead would increase attacks on drug warehouses controlled by powerful drug lords — a wholesale change in strategy.