SHIRAZ Police last week seized some 248 kilograms of narcotics in the southern Fars Province and arrested 74 drug traffickers, the provincial head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Police (IRIP) said here Friday.

Brigadier General Hossein Zolfaqari said that the confiscated haul included 207kg of hashish, 35kg of opium as well as 5.5kg of heroin.

He said police also dismantled a large drugs production and distribution network in Fars, Sistan-Baluchestan and Hormozgan provinces and arrested its members, IRNA reported.

Some 18 assault rifles were also seized throughout the province in the said period, he added.

Zolfaqari also said that police had destroyed some 36,000 stalks of poppies in mountainous regions of Mamassani and Firouzabad cities.

Earlier police in the southern Fars Province had announced destruction of some 35,000 of them.

The crop, intended for production of narcotics, were cultivated in mountainous areas in three villages, it said.

The cultivation and production of poppies in the Islamic Republic are very rare but the country is located at the crossroads of known international drug routes from drug producing countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan to markets in Europe, the Persian Gulf and Central Asian states.

Border police in southeastern Bam and Zabol regions as well as Central Semnan discovered 311kg of opium and arrested 12 drug traffickers in separate operations.

According to the Anti-Drug Headquarters of the IRIP, the seized haul were hidden in trucks and cars.

In a separate operation in northeastern Gorgan and Khorasan provinces as well as southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan provinces, police seized 110kg of opium and arrested five people last week.

Tehran police also discovered some 33kg of opium from a truck en route to Tehran from Mashhad and arrested four people.

The scourge of the international drug trade is felt even more by this country which continues to pay the price in lives and resources to wipe out the menace.

Statistics for 1999 cite 740 drug dealers and 174 Iranian police officers as having been killed in various encounters throughout the country, not to mention the tens of thousands whose lives are wrecked and those of their families because of addiction.

Deputy IRIP Commander Brigadier General Mohsen Ansari recently said that 3,000 Iranian police officers had lost their lives in drug-related battles throughout the country since 1981.

The country spends some Rls.120 billion annually on the fight against drug trafficking, he said.