[size=+1]British poppy seed seized in Afghanistan 'just harmless beans'[/size]
A cache of 1.3 tons of opium poppy seeds purportedly found in a massive British air assault on a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan are in fact harmless mung beans, it has been claimed.
By Ben Farmer in Kabul
Published: 3:02PM BST 01 Jul 2009
The seeds were found during Operation Panther's Claw to seize key river crossings in the Babaji region of Helmand province.
While there, the British also hailed the discovery of sacks full of seeds in a region where the Taliban earn hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the drug trade.
A statement describing the operation said: "While securing the area the troops have come across 1.3 tonnes of poppy seed and many components of improvised explosive devices, demonstrating the nexus between the insurgency and opium production which brings so much misery to the streets of the UK."
When shown the unusually large-looking poppy seeds, General Khodaidad, Afghanistan's minister of counter-narcotics, said they were a strain of "super poppy".
However, analysis of a sample of the seeds has found they are no more than mung beans, a common ingredient in Afghan curries, the Guardian has reported.
Dr Samuel Kugbei, the chief technical adviser with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation in Kabul, said: "We have been waiting all day to see these dangerous materials brought from Helmand and now we see that they are just mung beans!" He told the paper the beans had been introduced a decade ago to allow Afghan farmers to grow a second crop each year.
A spokesman for British forces in Helmand played down the discovery and said he was not sure if the find was poppy seeds or mung beans.
He said the British had never confiscated the sacks and the seizure and destruction of drugs was the job of the Afghan counter narcotics authorities. The possession of poppy seeds was not illegal, he added.
Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...eized-in-Afghanistan-just-harmless-beans.html
A cache of 1.3 tons of opium poppy seeds purportedly found in a massive British air assault on a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan are in fact harmless mung beans, it has been claimed.
By Ben Farmer in Kabul
Published: 3:02PM BST 01 Jul 2009
The seeds were found during Operation Panther's Claw to seize key river crossings in the Babaji region of Helmand province.
While there, the British also hailed the discovery of sacks full of seeds in a region where the Taliban earn hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the drug trade.
A statement describing the operation said: "While securing the area the troops have come across 1.3 tonnes of poppy seed and many components of improvised explosive devices, demonstrating the nexus between the insurgency and opium production which brings so much misery to the streets of the UK."
When shown the unusually large-looking poppy seeds, General Khodaidad, Afghanistan's minister of counter-narcotics, said they were a strain of "super poppy".
However, analysis of a sample of the seeds has found they are no more than mung beans, a common ingredient in Afghan curries, the Guardian has reported.
Dr Samuel Kugbei, the chief technical adviser with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation in Kabul, said: "We have been waiting all day to see these dangerous materials brought from Helmand and now we see that they are just mung beans!" He told the paper the beans had been introduced a decade ago to allow Afghan farmers to grow a second crop each year.
A spokesman for British forces in Helmand played down the discovery and said he was not sure if the find was poppy seeds or mung beans.
He said the British had never confiscated the sacks and the seizure and destruction of drugs was the job of the Afghan counter narcotics authorities. The possession of poppy seeds was not illegal, he added.
Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...eized-in-Afghanistan-just-harmless-beans.html
