From an AP article on FNC:
KABUL, Afghanistan âââ With scarves hiding some faces and guns at the ready, a new secretive Afghan anti-drug squad zoomed into a desert village as part of a crackdown on the country’s booming narcotics trade, authorities said Tuesday.
They seized 2 1/2 tons of opium and 550 pounds of heroin, but hundreds of smugglers sneaked out the back and fled to safety across the Pakistani border just 80 yards away. No one was arrested.
“We are determined to bring to justice the drug smugglers and you will soon witness that all smugglers will be brought to justice,” Gen. Mohammed Daoud, deputy interior minister for counternarcotics, said at a news conference in the capital, Kabul.
During a visit to Washington last week, Karzai rejected the criticism and vowed opium poppy production would be reduced by up to 30 percent this year and his country would be rid of the drug in five or six years.
The United States, Britain and other countries are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the anti-drug campaign. The cash is being used to train police units to destroy laboratories, arrest smugglers and destroy opium crops, as well as to fund projects to help farmers grow legal crops.
However, the drug traffickers have hit back. Earlier this month in two attacks on subsequent days, gunmen killed 11 people associated with a U.S.-sponsored project encouraging farmers not to grow poppies.
I didn’t think he would be able to crack down on narcotics in Afghanistan. I will be extremely impressed if he follows through on his promises.
Filed under: The Middle East
