DUSHANBE, August 7, 2008, Asia-Plus  -- Border guards have warded off an attempt by drug traffickers to smuggle a large amount of narcotics into the Khatlon province out of Afghanistan.  

 Lieutenant-Colonel Khoushnoud Rahmatulloyev, chief of press service of the main border directorate within the State Committee for National Security (GKNB), said that their servicemen on routine patrol detained Tajik national at the Afghan border in Khatlon’s Shuroobod district on August 6.  “More than 140 kilograms of hashish and five kilograms of heroin as well as sub-machine-gun Kalashnikov were confiscated from him,” the spokesman said.  

Criminal proceedings have been instituted against the drug trafficker and an investigation is under way.