January 3, 2003	Friday	Shawwal 29, 1423

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JALALABAD, Jan 2: Afghan border authorities have found more than 300 rockets being smuggled into the eastern province of Nangarhar from neighbouring Pakistan, an official said on Thursday.

Colonel Sayed Rahman, who oversees Nangarhar’s frontier force, also said four unidentified men had been arrested transporting the BM-12 rockets late on Wednesday along the Sasobi route linking Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The narrow, rugged mountain track runs some 20 km to the west of Torkham, a major border crossing between the neighbouring states.

“They (the arrested men) were carrying the rockets on donkeys and horses,” Rahman told Reuters in Jalalabad city, the provincial capital of Nangarhar. “The total number of BM-12 rockets, some of them Russian-made, was 330.”

Rahman said the Afghan authorities were investigating the four men’s identity and where they were taking the rockets.

He described the seizure as one of the largest since the Taliban was toppled in late 2001 after an intense US-led air bombardment and ground offensive led by the Northern Alliance.—Reuters