Brazil takes out clandestine airstrip with bombs

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil takes out clandestine airstrip with bombs
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 13, 2011 -- Updated 1604 GMT (0004 HKT)

(CNN) -- The Brazilian Air Force on Friday dropped eight 500-pound bombs on a clandestine airstrip in the jungle near the Colombian and Venezuelan borders, part of wide military operation that goes beyond targeting drug traffickers.

Video of the scene, released by the air force, showed craters on the destroyed airstrip, which they say was used to move drugs.

The highly-publicized effort, dubbed Operation Agatha, is an effort against drug trafficking, illegal mining and logging, and trafficking of wild animals, the military said.

"This operation is a first coordination effort by the government to intensify actions on the border," Col. Jose Maurilo Machado de Lima said. "We are going to carry out, periodically, operations of intensification of that control."

More:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/08/13/brazil.military.operation/index.html