Publicité
Special Afghan police units against drugs
Par
Partager cet article
Special Afghan police units against drugs
AFGHANISTAN, the world?s leading producer of opium, has formed special police units to destroy poppy fields and heroin factories as it steps up its battle on drugs, the interior minister said yesterday.
Opium is extracted from poppies and refined into heroin. ?Our effort is to increase the campaign?, Ali Ahmad Jalali told reporters. One of the measures is to increase the capacity to destroy poppy cultivated lands in the summer. ?We have plans on hand in three phases. First, to destroy opium and heroin laboratories, second combat its trafficking and third is destruction of poppy fields.?
Jalali said the destruction of poppy fields would begin in two weeks time in three provinces and then be expanded to others. He said police hoped to destroy 20 percent of an estimated 110,000 hectares (275,000 acres) of opium poppies this year. Jalali said Afghanistan would also increase the number of checkpoints on its 700 km (450 mile) border with Iran to 25 from 10, in order to try to control that key smuggling route.
He said foreign donors had pledged technical and financial support for the war on drugs. Britain is leading the international effort to assist drug eradication. Most heroin sold in Europe comes from Afghanistan. Afghan opium output has soared since the late-2001 overthrow of the hardline Taliban regime, which succeeded in almost eradicating production during its final year in power. The United Nations estimates Afghan opium production last year reached 3,600 tonnes.
Lack of infrastructure and continuing insecurity in Afghanistan have left the new government of President Hamid Karzai struggling to contain the drugs trade. UN officials say that despite the Taliban?s crackdown on the trade when in power, it now earns hundreds of millions of dollars a year from it to finance its insurgency.
Pro-government warlords are also involved in the trade but Islamic militants are thought to control many key smuggling routes into Pakistan. Jalali conceded that some police officers and regional commanders were involved in cultivation and trafficking.
?Yes, people working in the government have hand in it. If we take into consideration the expansion of narcotics, it is impossible to imagine that government authorities do not have hand in it.?
Sayed Salahuddin
Publicité
Publicité
Les plus récents
