Tehran, January 02: Armed drug traffickers have killed at least seven Iranian police officials in heavy clashes near the eastern borders of the country.
Police commander of the Southern Khorasan Province Hamid Sharafi told reporters Friday that the slain policemen will be put to rest in the holy city of Mashad.
The Brigadier General noted that the clashes broke out when security officials came to notice the group’s drug trafficking operation in the southern Khorasan Province and attempted to confiscate around two tones of drugs.
He added that four members of the drug trafficking network were killed in the clashes, while one sustained heavy injuries.
Earlier in July, Iran laid out a comprehensive multi-year plan to tighten security along its borders as part of the plan to crack down on terrorists and drug traffickers.
Iran lies on a transit corridor between opium producing Afghanistan and drug dealers in Europe. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the country has lost more than 3,300 of its security forces in its war against narcotics.
The Tehran government’s counternarcotics efforts were once acknowledged by Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Antonio Maria Costa.
Costa said that Iran was “making a massive sacrifice” to stop the smuggling of drugs from Afghanistan to the West, and therefore deserves “both the gratitude and the support of the international community.”
“The anti-narcotics police in Iran are among the best in the world”, Costa said.
——-Agencies