According to a top Canadian military general, Taliban forces in Afghanistan utilize forests of ten-foot tall marijuana plants to evade Canadian troops. The plants provide a nearly impenetrable barrier, and dense camouflage, for Taliban militias, and render thermal devices for detecting movement obsolete.

Marijuana plants, according to General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, absorb energy and heat, which allows Taliban forces to evade thermal detecting devices used by Canadian forces. "It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," the general remarked at a press conference in Ottawa.

Ground forces in search of Taliban fighters have been at a disadvantage without the use of such sophisticated technology.

"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," Hillier said.

Yet burning has not seemed to improve the situation, as Canadian forces remain dazed and confused as to how to adequately combat the situation.

"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," Hillier remarked.

One crew of a Canadian armored car battalion attempted to adapt to the situation by camouflaging their vehicle with marijuana plants, a Reuters report noted on Friday.