POLICE TO HELP AFGHANS CURB HEROIN

PRIVATE, armed security guards will protect four Australian Federal
Police officers being sent to Afghanistan to help try to curb heroin
production in the country.

Afghanistan's opium cultivation rose a huge 60 per cent last year.

The AFP will send four officers to work alongside Afghan police, with
two to be based in the capital Kabul and two to work in Jalalabad.

AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty said heroin overdose deaths in Australia
had fallen from about 1100 a year to just 300 over the past six years
- -- partly because of work by the agency in Burma's drug producing areas.

Mr Keelty hopes the same pre-emptive strategies will produce results
in Afghanistan.

Police believe about 20 per cent of the heroin smuggled into
Australia comes from Afghanistan.