Afghan forces deal blow to heroin traders

An Afghan task force seized more than 15 tons of opium in raids on illegal drug laboratories as part of President Hamid Karzai’s crackdown on what he calls the nation’s biggest threat.

That amount of opium, one of the largest seizures in recent years, could have been refined into about 1.5 tons of heroin. UN surveys estimate Afghanistan accounted for three-quarters of the world’s opium last year.