Apr
9
Drug processing in Afghanistan: in the middle of firefight
April 9, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
By Violet
Sophisticated laboratories inside Afghanistan are now converting 90 percent of the country’s opium into heroin and morphine before smuggling it around the world, the United Nations said, cited by an AFP report last year..The report said Afghanistan had until three years ago exported the illicit drug almost exclusively in its raw form, according to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The AFP report quoted UNODC representative Christina Oguz as saying at the time that ‘the amount of the opium being processed (in Afghanistan) is around 90 percent — at least the lion’s share, Oguz also said the annual income from the drugs trade — more than three billion US dollars — helps finance the Taliban-led insurgency plaguing mainly southern and eastern Afghanistan.
AFP reported in August 27 that a day before Afghan and coalition troops had destroyed a heroin laboratory after battling Taliban
fighters guarding the facility, citing a coalition statement. The lab in Helmand contained large amounts of opium-processing chemicals as well as weapons, insurgent propaganda and explosive materials, the statement said.
According to a Bloomberg report in February this year, British and Afghan troops had seized a ton of opium and 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of heroin powder as part of an effort to cut off funding for Taliban insurgents.
The seisure of heroin was made north of the town of Sagin in the southern Helmand province, the report said. It added that the seisure of the drugs came after coalition soldiers fought with a large number” of insurgents, who tried to protect the drug lab with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement at the time.
