Kabul: The NATO-led force in Afghanistan on Monday said it had made "incredible" seizures of drugs in Afghanistan last year and dealt a blow to the finances of the Taliban-led insurgents.

"Narcotics trafficking has been a key generator of funding for the insurgency, but that source of revenue is diminishing," Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, told a news conference. "Afghan security forces, together with ISAF partners, seized an incredible amount of illicit drugs and related material in 2011 versus 2010."

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Opium seizures rose 13 per cent and those of hashish climbed 59 per cent, while the amount of marijuana and morphine confiscated soared 1,208 per cent and 10,113 per cent respectively, according to the figures from ISAF, which did not give the amounts of drugs seized.

"Counter-narcotics operations are successfully disrupting the insurgents` ability to process opium into heroin. We will continue to choke off revenue generated by the sale of illicit drugs in 2012," Jacobson said. ISAF`s optimism is in stark contrast to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which in October said opium production in Afghanistan rose 61 percent in 2011 from the previous year, when the harvest was hit by disease.

The UNODC estimates this year`s output at 5,800 tonnes against 3,600 tonnes last year, with a slight increase in area under poppy cultivation to about 324,000 acres in 2011.

PTI