Baku, Azerbaijan, June 12
Trend:
One Iranian border guard was killed in an armed clash with drug smugglers in the country's south eastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan.
The clash occurred between Mirjaveh 128 commando unit and drug traffickers near the border of Pakistan. As a result, Lt. Akbar Masoumi Nejad was killed in the shootout , Iran’s police site said in a statement June 12.
No further details were available regarding the incident.
Iran sits 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.
According to the statistics, there are about two million drug users in Iran.