RAWALPINDI, Oct 9: The United States praised Pakistan on Wednesday for being a frontline state in the war against drugs, but said the threat of heroin smuggling had resurfaced due to the poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.

“You are on the frontline in our war against drugs,” US ambassador to Pakistan Nancy Powell said at a function for the officials of the Anti-Narcotics Force.

The ANF received most of a US assistance package worth $73 million to intercept drugs and drug traffickers, particularly along its western border with Afghanistan.

Ms Powell said Pakistan did an “outstanding job”, but still there was a need to be vigilant to ensure that the drug smugglers may not flourish.

“The far bigger challenge we face in the months ahead is posed by the increased heroin trafficking into Pakistan as a result of the renewed poppy cultivation in Afghanistan,” she said.

A report published by leading London-based drugs charity DrugScope last month said opium cultivation in Afghanistan, once the world’s biggest producer of the illicit drug, had shot up to over 2,000 tonnes since the fall of the Taliban.

The report estimated total Afghan opium production at between 1,900 and 2,700 metric tonnes for 2002, up from 185 tonnes in 2001.

Ms Powell praised Pakistan for eradicating poppy cultivation in the semi-autonomous tribal areas bordering Afghanistan by encouraging farmers to shift to alternative crops.

The ANF director general, Major General Zafar Abbass, said it was difficult for countries to fight narcotics networks, many of which were armed with sophisticated weapons, good ground mobility and satellite communications.

He thanked the US for providing support in fighting drug trafficking by equipping the ANF.—Reuters