U.S. planes drop 53,000 food packets over northern Afghanistan

FRANKFURT, Germany – Three American cargo jets dropped 53,000 packets of food over northern Afghanistan overnight, an Air Force spokesman said Friday, as part of the ongoing U.S. campaign to provide humanitarian aid while carrying out bombing raids in the country.

Four C-17 planes initially took off for the Thursday night mission, but one was forced to turn back before it had a chance to drop, said Master Sgt. Randy Mitchell, a spokesman for U.S. Air Force Europe at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. He gave no details, citing security reasons.

Mitchell said the planes have now dropped more than 500,000 packets in the operation, which coincided with the start of U.S. airstrikes. Estimates of the total have fluctuated because of the difficulty determining if all the packets aboard each plane were dropped.

The individual daily rations contain foods such as barley stew, rice, shortbread cookies and peanut butter providing at least 2,200 calories. They are dropped out of boxes from the back of the cargo planes.

APNP-10-19-01 1015CDT