Police in Afghanistan's northeastern Takhar province arrested five drug traffickers and discovered heroin from their possession, provincial police chief Ziadin Mahmoudi said Tuesday, Xinhua reported.
"We arrested five drug smugglers Monday night and found nine kg pure heroin from their possession," Mahmoudi told Xinhua.
All the smugglers are Afghans, he added.
He did not say about the destination of the drug traffickers, but narcotics from Takhar and the neighboring Badakhshan provinces are often smuggled to Tajikistan.
The Afghan government has stepped up the war on illicit drug and launched counter-narcotics campaign in the poppy growing Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on Saturday and so far has destroyed over 80 hectares of poppy fields.