AFGHAN POLICE RAID HEROIN LABS, SEIZE TONS OF OPIUM POPPY

Afghan anti-narcotics police have demolished four heroin laboratories in
northern Badakhshan province and seized 10 tons of opium poppy used to make
heroin, a senior interior ministry official said Wednesday.

President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday called for a "jihad" against narcotics in
Afghanistan which is the world's leading producer of opium.

"Secret counter-narcotics police raided poppy stocks and laboratories, they
seized more than 10 tons of poppy and demolished four heroin processing
laboratories," Deputy Interior Minister General Hilaludin Hilal told AFP.

The raids took place on Monday night in the northern province which borders
Tajikistan and has a high level of poppy cultivation, drug production and
trafficking of narcotics.

Several people were arrested, including one person who was slightly
injured, the minister said.

"There was a slight resistance and one person was lightly injured and
several were arrested, with no casualties on the police side," he said.

According to United Nations officials the burgeoning drug industry is in
danger of turning the Central Asian nation into a failed narco-state.

In the more than two years since the fall of the Islamic fundamentalist
Taliban regime, which strictly banned the growing of poppies, the narcotics
industry has grown to account for about half of the country's annual
domestic product.

The operation in Badakhshan follows the destruction of poppy fields in
southern Kandahar on Tuesday and the demolition of some 40 drugs labs in
eastern Nangarhar province earlier this week as part of the government's
crackdown on the illicit trade.