KARZAI DECLARES WAR ON DRUGS

Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Afghan Interior Minister Ali. A. Jalali
told provincial security chiefs Monday that poppy cultivation must stop and
future crops would be destroyed.

The announcement was made at the ministry in Kabul during an anti-narcotics
seminar attended by provincial security chiefs and senior government officials.

Eradicating the country's opium trade is one of the campaign promises
President-elect Hamid Karzai is anxious to fulfill.

"Growers must not plant poppies this year," Minister Jalali warned the
officers. He told them to return to their provinces and tell growers that
cultivating poppies was against Islam, and beginning this year the
government would destroy their crops without compensation.

The ministry said the government is committed to destroying the drug
economy, and that if the security chiefs fail to stop poppy cultivation in
their provinces, the government's eradication program will begin