Baku, Azerbaijan, July 30
By Khalid Kazimov – Trend:
Iran's police seized over 3.4 tons of drugs from armed smugglers in the country's south eastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
Brigadier General Hossein Rahimi, provincial police chief, has said that police confronted with three groups of smugglers in the province on July 29, IRNA news agency reported.
According to the police chief, in the first operation police seized over two tons of drugs following an armed clash with smugglers near the city of Saravan.
In a separate operation on the same day in Khash county police arrested three smugglers and seized 900 kilogram of opium, he added.
Police also seized 496 kilograms of opium in Iranshahr country on the same day, Brigadier General Hossein Rahimi added.
Iran is situated on a major drug route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Persian Gulf states. The Islamic Republic shares about 900 kilometers of common border with Afghanistan, over which 74 percent of opium is smuggled.
The fight against drug trafficking annually costs Iran about $1 billion, according to the official estimates. The statistics also say there are about two million drug users in Iran.