Iran says 87 killed in clashes with drug runners

TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) -- Iranian security forces killed 87 armed bandits and seized one ton of narcotics and many rounds of ammunition over the past month, the official IRNA news agency said on Saturday.

Mohsen Mehralizadeh, governor general of Khorasan province, told the agency that eight police officers had also been killed in the clashes, which have intensified since October as part of heightened efforts to interdict the drugs traffic.

He said 60 hostages, taken by the bandits for ransom or to exchange for colleagues under arrest, had been freed.

Iran has trained tens of thousands of members of the Islamic Basij militia to help patrol its eastern frontier. Parliament recently earmarked $2.5 million to improve border security, IRNA said.

In a separate report, the daily Qods said security forces had killed 28 armed drug smugglers and arrested 33 over the past few days in Khorasan. It was unclear whether those figures were included in the IRNA total for the last month.

Qods quoted a local security commander as saying the clashes, which took place earlier in the week, had lasted for six hour in poor weather conditions.

Iran lies along the lucrative drugs routes from Afghanistan and Pakistan, en route to big markets in Europe and the Gulf.

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