NZ soldiers destroy opium in Afghanistan

New Zealand soldiers working on the reconstruction of war-torn Afghanistan have destroyed nearly two tonnes of opium.

The troops are part of the New Zealand Defence Force Provincial Reconstruction Team (NZPRT) in the Bamyan province.

The 1746kg of opium resin was seized by the Afghan national drugs police from caves near Bamyan before it could be smuggled across the Afghan border and processed into heroin, said the defence force.

Its destruction was supervised by New Zealand police superintendent Tom Ireland, who is based in Bamyan with the NZPRT as mentor to the local police chief.

The resin was like a dense black tar rolled into large balls and was destroyed by fire inside the New Zealand compound.

Defence spokeswoman Major Denise MacKay said Bamyan residents watched the destruction from outside the compound.

The resin took 12 hours to destroy after it was placed in a wood-fired pit and 160 litres of waste diesel and oil was added to increase the heat of the fire, she said.

New Zealand has 94 defence force personnel in the NZPRT in Afghanistan, part of an overseas deployment of 504 personnel in 21 countries.

- NZPA