TEHRAN FIGHTS LOSING BATTLE AGAINST DRUG BARONS

ON the wall outside Iran's drug control agency are portraits of
anti-narcotics police officers. Thirty-five in all, each picture bears the
red rose of a martyr. All died in the line of duty, killed by drug
traffickers.

That death toll would be high enough if it was incurred in the course of a
year. Those 35 lives were not lost over 12 months however, but in a single
day. The men all died during a shoot-out with a drug smuggling gang in
south-west Iran last month and their fate was far from unusual - last year
193 Iranian police officers and soldiers were killed in clashes with
traffickers.

Buy heroin on a British street and there is an eight in ten chance that the
it was originally cultivated as opium poppies in Afghanistan - and if so it
is certain that on its way to Europe it passed through Iran.

The Islamic republic is a transit country for the drug trade. Esmaeil
Afshari, a director of the drug control agency, said the sheer volume of
narcotics passing through the country's borders is far too great to be
stopped.

Iran's limited successes only illustrate the scale of the problem. Last
year Iranian forces seized 253 tonnes of drugs, but even that haul pales in
comparison to the 4,600 tonnes of opiate drugs the United Nations estimates
that Afghanistan produces each year. And that figure according to Iranian
intelligence estimates, may only be 80 per cent of the real total.

While most of the traffic passes on to distant markets, more than enough
stays in Iran. The Iranian government estimates that there are more than
two million drug users among Iran's 65 million people of whom 1.2 million
are addicted. Most are opium users and the interior ministry estimates they
are responsible for up to half of all crime in Iran.

Perhaps surprisingly for a country with a tradition of strict abstention
and a harsh penal code, Iran's approach to addiction is relatively
sympathetic with help provided through 55 state-funded rehabilitation clinics.

However, foreign journalists are not encouraged to visit the clinics. "It
might not be understood. It might not be safe," says one police official.

Iran's struggle to keep out the substances that fuel the addicts' habits
has left its border with Afghanistan resembling a war zone. Deep trenches
have been dug, barbed wire fences erected and heavily fortified watch
towers built. In all 30,000 Iranian troops are deployed along the border
with Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the frontier is 1,200 miles long and
even when Iranian forces do intercept drug smugglers in the vast rocky
plains and mountainous valleys they often find themselves outnumbered and
out-gunned.

Mr Afshari says the drug gangs are able to buy even the most powerful
weapons in the arms bazaars of Central Asia. "They travel in caravans of
dozens of cars, and the security cars have heavy weapons. They have
machine-guns, RPG-7 rocket launchers, and they have even used Stinger
missiles to shoot down our helicopters."

Nor do those who live in the border provinces escape the traffickers, who
force residents to transport drugs or face execution. Kidnapping is
commonplace, and a group of Portuguese scientists abducted in Kerman
province last month were simply the highest profile victims. Released
unharmed, they had been seized by a drug baron demanding his son be
released from an Iranian jail.

Mohammed Nasser Tavasolizadah, an MP for one of the frontier provinces,
says people there live "in a state of constant terror" because of the drug
gangs. "If the people don't obey the smugglers they or their families will
be killed." To defend residents, he has called on the Iranian government to
allow the formation of local armed militia groups. However, Mr Afshari said
responsibility for blocking the flow of drugs also rests with the
international community and particularly those states where the drugs end
their journey. For the most part that means Europe.

Britain has responded to that call, donating body armour and night vision
goggles to Iran's drug police as well as giving UKP1.2 million in direct
aid. But that says Mr Afshari, is a drop in the ocean.

"Iran spends $70 million every year on fighting drugs. We get less than $4
million every year from the United Nations."