SOLDIERS DESTROY 38 HEROIN FACTORIES

Kabul, Afghanistan

Afghan soldiers yesterday demolished nearly 40 heroin factories in the
remote mountainous province of Nangarhar which borders Pakistan in a
large-scale anti-drugs operation, officials said.

The drug-producing cells were destroyed one day after the Ministry of
Interior announced a plan to eradicate poppy crops around the country
and as Afghanistan's administration was due to meet with world leaders
in Berlin for a major aid pledging conference.

"Recently we were informed of a large number of newly-built heroin
factories near the border with Pakistan in the Achin area of Shinwari
district," close to the Khyber Pass, Nangarhar governor Haji Din
Mohammed said.

Some 500 to 600 troops, mainly from the border patrol, were sent to
the area, he said.

"They surrounded the area overnight and early this morning they
started the operation to seize and destroy the factories," Mohammed
said.

"The last information I have is that at 4pm today, 38 factories were
demolished and the operation was still going on."

Work would continue to remove the small number of factories still
spread throughout the remote and inaccessible area, he said.

Mohammed said the owners and drug traffickers had fled the area,
possibly into Pakistan, shortly after the operation started but a
"large number" of workers had been arrested.

"We have arrested a large number of labourers, some of them are
teenagers who had gone to these factories to work," Mohammed said.

Also seized were hundreds of kilograms of semi-processed heroin,
several dozen barrels of acid and other chemicals needed to produce
the narcotic from poppies.

Afghanistan is the world's biggest producer of poppy-derived opium
used to make heroin and according to United Nations officials the
burgeoning drug industry is in danger of turning the Central Asian
nation into a failed narco-state.