Afghan counter‑narcotics police seized more than 180 kilograms of opium and hashish in the northern province of Takhar on Saturday and arrested four suspected traffickers, the authorities said on Sunday. The seized contraband, weighing 143 kilograms of opium and 40 kilograms of hashish, had been hidden in the compartments of a car, spokesperson Naqibullah Masroor said after the operation was completed in the provincial capital Taluqan.
The four suspects were in the process of transporting the drugs to an unknown destination when police intercepted their vehicle, Masroor added, and all were taken into custody. In a separate operation earlier that week, police in the western province of Herat seized 32 kilograms of methamphetamine and arrested two individuals, the agency noted, following a raid on Friday.
The exact circumstances of the Herat raid, including the identities of the suspects and the intended route of the meth, remain unreported by the authorities. Both incidents underscore the ongoing effort by Afghan counter‑narcotics forces to disrupt drug trafficking networks across the country, but details of the suspects' backgrounds and the broader logistics of the trade are not yet available.
Key uncertainties that the authorities have not yet clarified include the destinations that the traffickers had planned, the identities of the two Herat suspects, and whether additional smuggling routes were uncovered during the investigations.
