Afghan counter-drug officials destroyed 6 tonnes of drugs in a raging bonfire yesterday they said symbolized recent successes in Afghanistan’s fight against opium poppies and heroin.
The drugs, which were burned a large pile on a sloping mountainside on the outskirts of Kabul, were confiscated by authorities over the last three to four months, said General Khodaidad, the country’s counternarcotics minister.
“This is a big success against terrorism, against people who are producing poppies,” said Khodaidad, who like many Afghans goes by one name. “Poppy mainly supports the insurgency in Afghanistan.”
The Taliban and other warlords may have earned almost US$500 million from Afghanistan’s opium trade last year, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said.
Still, Khodaidad acknowledged that the 6 tonnes of drugs — including heroin, opium, hashish and chemicals to turn opium into heroin — was only a drop in the bucket. A UN report last year said Afghan farmers had produced 7,000 tonnes of opium last year with an export value estimated at US$3.4 billion.
General Dawood Dawood, the top counternarcotics officer in the Interior Ministry, said officials hoped to increase the number of poppy-free provinces from 18 last year to 26 this year. Khodaidad, perhaps providing a more realistic assessment, said he hoped the number increased to 22 or 23 this year.
Dawood said yesterday’s drug burn was a “big achievement” for the counternarcotics police.
“If we do not burn the drugs, thousands of others will become drug addicts,” he said. “We show the people we are committed to the fight against drugs.”
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