KABUL, 1 June 2005 — Afghanistan said yesterday it has completely destroyed the country’s largest so-called “drugs bazaar” in a special three-day operation, along with nearly six tons of narcotics and related substances. The crackdown on the Bahram Shah Bazaar at Garmser, in southern Helmand province some 650 kilometers south of Kabul, was carried out by Afghanistan’s new US and British-trained counter-narcotics force, officials said.
“Two-and-a-half tons of poppy, 250 kilograms of heroin and 3.5 tons of chemicals were seized and were destroyed in the operation,” Gen. Mohammed Daud, the Afghan deputy interior minister, told a press conference yesterday.
However, no one was arrested or killed in the operation in Bahram Shah, which is around 100 meters from the rugged, poorly defined Afghan-Pakistani border.
“When the operation started most of the smugglers and traffickers managed to escape across the Pakistani border,” Daud said as he displayed a video clip of the operation showing the Afghan Special Narcotics Force troops approaching and burning the drugs.
Meanwhile, US-led warplanes and troops killed up to nine suspected Taleban after repelling a wave of militant attacks, while four Afghan police and seven rebels died during an assault on a police station, officials said. The attacks all happened on Monday in the south of war-ravaged Afghanistan, a region still regarded as a hotbed of activity by the ousted hard-line regime, which is launching a renewed onslaught on US and Afghan targets.
The US-led military said no Afghan or coalition troops were killed or wounded in a series of attacks on Monday by the insurgents at Barmal in Paktika province, a coalition press statement said.
“Initial reports indicate up to nine insurgents were killed May 30 during three near-simultaneous attacks against Afghan and coalition positions along the Afghan-Pakistan border,” the statement said.
