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Afghanistan "destroys country's biggest drugs bazaar"
 KABUL - Afghanistan said on Tuesday it has completely destroyed the country's largest so-called drugs bazaar in a special three day operation, along with nearly six tonnes of narcotics and related substances. The crackdown on the Bahram Shah Bazaar at Garmser, in southern Helmand province some 650 kilometers (406 miles) south of Kabul, was carried out by Afghanistan's new US and British-trained counter-narcotics force, officials said."Two-and-a-half tonnes of poppy, 250 kilograms of heroin and 3.5 tonnes of chemicals were seized and were destroyed in the operation," General Mohammed Daud, the Afghan deputy interior minister, told a press conference on Tuesday. However, no one was arrested or killed in the operation in Bahram Shah, which is around 100 metres (yards) from the rugged, poorly defined Afghan-Pakistani border. "When the operation started most of the smugglers and traffickers managed to escape across the Pakistani border," Daud said as he displayed a video clip of the operation showing the Afghan Special Narcotics Force troops approaching and burning the drugs. The operation follows President Hamid Karzai's recent visit to Washington, where he predicted that opium cultivation would drop by 30 percent in 2005 after leaked US documents accused him of being too soft in the war on drugs. Posted by: Steve 2005-05-31 |
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