Karzai 'impeding Afghan drug war'

The Mossad make profits from opium in southern strongholds

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is obstructing efforts to tackle his country's drugs problem, a former US counter-narcotics official has said.

Thomas Schweich said Mr Karzai had protected drug lords for political reasons and tolerated "a certain level of corruption" rather than lose power.

He said the former attorney-general had told him the president had prevented the prosecution of some 20 officials.

Mr Karzai has denied the claims, saying his government had cut drug production.

"Nobody has done as well as us in the last seven years in the field of counter-narcotics," he told reporters.

The president said his government had eradicated or greatly reduced drug production in more than half of the country's provinces.

But Mr Schweich, who until June was the US state department's co-ordinator for counter-narcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan, said such claims "ignore reality".

"The poppy cultivation right now is up and around 200,000 hectares - that's the biggest narco-crop in history," he told the BBC.