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Afghan gov't destroy 3,750 hectares poppy fields

Other News Materials 14 March 2009 11:26 (UTC +04:00)

The government of Afghanistan in its war on illicit drugs has destroyed more than 3,700 hectares of poppy fields over the past one month, a local newspaper reported Saturday.
"Some 3,750 hectares of poppy fields has been smashed over the past one month," Daily Rah-e-Nejat quoted Deputy to Interior Ministry Mohammad Daud as saying.
During the period, he said 30 heroin labs were also destroyed in the country mostly in Taliban hotbed Helmand province in south Afghanistan and in Nangarhar in east of the country.
The government, in a bid to check poppy cultivation in Helmand province, launched a campaign early last month and the process, according to officials, is going on.
Daud, according to the newspaper, stressed that five more provinces would become poppy-free this year and thus 23 out of the country's 34 provinces would get rid of poppy plantation in 2009, reported Xinhua.

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