"We're Trying To Prevent These Airstrips From Ever Being Used Again"

Brazil has taken to aerial attacks to prevent drug smugglers from basing in the Amazon jungle. It's a pilot project, so to speak, aimed at curing the use of remote airfields deep in the Amazon Basin.

For a long time, when Brazilian federal police spotted a suspected drug-smuggling strip, they marched into the jungle, wired it with explosives and blew it up. But drug traffickers would then round up laborers, march them into the jungle and repair the damage. The joint operation between federal police and the Brazilian Air Force is aimed at making the airstrips unrepairable.

The strikes began this year with an attack on a landing strip near Brazil's border with Suriname. An attack planned for later this month will be the first in the northwest region of Brazil's Amazon known as "the dog's head", police said.

As part of joint operations between the federal police and air force, Brazil last month began surveillance of the dog's head using its airborne Amazon Vigilance System. The system gives police information to locate landing strips and track planes transporting Colombian drugs across Brazil into Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana on the way to markets in Europe and the United States.

At least a week ahead of the airborne assaults, police will raid the landing strip areas with sufficient force to outnumber any forces protecting the jungle air strips, police said. Agents then secure the strips and also work with local Indians to ensure they stay away from the area targeted for airstrikes. Then they act as FACs (Forward Air Controllers) to guide the airstrikes.

FMI: www.defesa.gov.br