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Afghan police retreat under fire from drug smugglers
 KABUL: Police retreated from a village in a heartland of Afghanistan's drug industry after coming under fire by militiamen accused of trafficking opium into neighbouring Tajikistan, an official said on Thursday. About 150 police pulled back overnight from Chergan Shahr, a village in Badakhshan province 320 kilometres northwest of the capital, Kabul, mayor Mohammed Nabi Bayan told The Associated Press. No casualties were reported. Officials have appealed in vain for gunmen holed up in the hills surrounding the area to surrender their weapons under a government plan to dismantle Afghanistan's illegal militias and clamp down on its narcotics business, the world's largest. Bayan said police faced 250 militiamen armed with assault rifles and machine guns and that they had pulled back to Ab Ganda, another village in Shahr-e-Buzurg district, after spending two days under sporadic fire. Posted by: Fred 2005-04-22 |
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