Kabul, January 2:

Afghanistan said it aimed to slash the area of land used for growing opium by at least 40 per cent this year, playing down UN estimates that output in the world’s biggest producer would rise.

Deputy interior minister in charge of counternarcotics General Mohammad Daud said that the area used to cultivate poppies, from which heroin is derived, had dropped 40 per cent in 2005.

“Our aim for the future, for 2006, is to further reduce poppy cultivation. In the lowest to maintain the 40 per cent and in the highest we hope to double it,” Daud told reporters in Kabul.

The general rejected a warning given last month by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that Afghan opium production could increase in 2006, after showing a decline last year.

“We don’t agree with that UN report,” he said.

In August the UN announced that there had been a 21 per cent drop in land planted with poppies, although this only translated into a 2.4 per cent drop in output to 4,100 tonnes because of favourable weather conditions for the crop.

The international community has pinpointed drug production in Afghanistan, which pumps out more than 85 per cent of the world’s opium, as one of the greatest threats to the war-scarred country’s future.

Remnants of the Taliban regime — which was ousted by US-led forces in late 2001 for harbouring Osama bin Laden and continues to carry out attacks — were encouraging farmers to cultivate opium, Daud said. “Yes, the Taliban using statements and leaflets are encouraging farmers to grow poppy,” he said.

Daud said that after “public awareness” seminars for provincial officials, farmers and tribal and religious leaders his ministry would send 1,300 troops to the provinces for poppy eradication on January 20.

He added that his ministry’s counter-narcotics efforts last year had been successful and that more hundreds of drug smugglers were detained and tried under a newly-launched drug judiciary system launched in mid-2005.

More than 120 tonnes of drugs including heroin and hundreds of laboratories were destroyed last year. “Fortunately in 2005 our successes were significant. 715 alleged drug smugglers have been detained and tried,” he said.

Daud admitted that some officials were also involved in the lucrative trade but said they would be rooted out. “There will not be any exception (and) they will be pursued whether they’re government officials or others,” he said.

He said the focus of poppy eradication for 2006 will be on provinces such as southern Helmand, the top drug producing region in 2005, northeastern Badakhshan and western Farah. Eastern Nangharhar, which was the second largest drug producing province in 2004, saw a dramatic 90 per cent drop in poppy cultivation last year.