Kabul, Mar 18: Afghanistan, the world's leading producer of opium, has formed special police units to destroy poppy fields and heroin factories as it steps up its battle on drugs, the Interior Minister said today. Opium is extracted from poppies and refined into heroin.

''Our effort is to increase the campaign,'' Ali Ahmad Jalali told reporters. ''One of the measures is to increase the capacity to destroy poppy cultivated lands in the summer.

''We have plans on hand in three phases. First, to destroy opium and heroin laboratories, second combat its trafficking and third is destruction of poppy fields.''

Jalali said the destruction of poppy fields would begin in two weeks time in three provinces and then be expanded to others. He said police hoped to destroy 20 percent of an estimated 110,000 hectares (275,000 acres) of opium poppies this year.
Jalali said Afghanistan would also increase the number of checkpoints on its 700 km border with Iran to 25 from 10, in order to try to control that key smuggling route.

He said foreign donors had pledged technical and financial support for the war on drugs.

Bureau Report