KABUL - Afghanistan's counter-narcotics forces have arrested six alleged drug traffickers and seized four tons of opium during raids in the southeastern poppy cultivating region, the interior ministry said Tuesday.
Some 20 kilograms (some 44 pounds) of heroin and "significant quantities" of chemicals used to turn opium into heroin were also seized during operations in Helmand province, the country's top drug producing area, it said in a statement.
"This has dealt a hammer blow to the drug traffickers of Helmand," the statement quoted Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali as saying.
The raids in several districts across the province launched last week follow similar operations in eastern Nangarhar province against drug traffickers and laboratories.
Afghanistan produced some 87 percent of the world's illegal opium used to make heroin, according to UN report.
President Hamid Karzai said after his inauguration in December that he would wage a "jihad", or a holy war, on the drugs cultivation, trade and traffickers. Afghanistan is working to establish a special court and jail system to deal with drug trafficking but efforts have so far done little to curb the trade in the impoverished nation.
US officials warned this month that a US-financed poppy eradication program aimed at curtailing Afghanistan's heroin trade had been ineffective in part because Karzai "has been unwilling to assert strong leadership," The New York Times reported on its web site Saturday.
05/24/2005 15:37 GMT