Taliban monster dope plants defy military

Afghanistan's fun-loving Taliban have deployed a hitherto unknown tactic in evading detection in their war against UN forces: take refuge in 10-foot high, fireproof marijuana forests.

Despite Canadian troops' best efforts to burn down the monster dope plantations, the weed continues to offer excellent cover for the insurgents, Reuters reports.

General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defence staff, admitted yesterday: "We tried burning them with white phosphorous - it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel - it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now...that we simply couldn't burn them."

And when they did manage to get a fire going, the results were predictable. Hillier added: "A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action."