KABUL, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police have captured 670 kg of opium in a latest anti-drug operation in southern province of Helmand, a statement of Afghan interior ministry issued here said Thursday.

    The drug was recovered Wednesday from a car in Washir district of Helmand, a known hotbed of Taliban militancy, and three people with suspected links to drug trafficking were arrested, it added.

    In 2007, some 193,000 hectares in Afghanistan were devoted to the illicit cultivation of opium poppy, and the Central Asian nation now supplies an estimated 93 percent of the global illicit market for opiates, according to a report issued Wednesday by International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), an anti-drug organization under the UN.

    "Afghanistan must do more to address its escalating drug problem," the INCB said.