Nearly 3 Tonnes Of Drugs Seized In Farah & Uruzgan, Says Taliban
Taliban authorities say they have seized nearly three tonnes of cannabis and opium in western and southern Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s Interior Ministry said 37 kilograms of opium and 2,700 kilograms of cannabis were confiscated in Farah and Uruzgan provinces.
In a statement issued Thursday, the ministry said four people were arrested while transporting opium along with equipment used for drug production in Bala Buluk district of Farah province.
It added that Taliban counter-narcotics officers discovered the cannabis shipment in Chinaratu district of Uruzgan province and later destroyed it by burning.
Earlier in the summer, Mohammad Narimani, director-general of international relations at Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters, said drug trafficking from stockpiles in Afghanistan to Iran and other countries was continuing. He said Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Russia were on the frontline in efforts to combat trafficking originating in Afghanistan.
Taliban representatives told the fourth counter-narcotics working group meeting under the Doha Process in Kabul that poppy cultivation and the production of traditional drugs in Afghanistan had “almost reached zero”.
At the same meeting, they expressed concern about the production of synthetic drugs, saying equipment needed to manufacture such substances is smuggled into Afghanistan from abroad.
