Iranian police found a Soviet-built surface-to-air missile during a recent skirmish with drug traffickers, the newspaper Kayhan reported Saturday.
The "sophisticated" missile, whose make was not specified, was designed to target helicopters, said General Nasser Shabani, police commander in Sistan-Baluchistan province on the Pakistani border.
The missile, found close to Zahedan near Iran's border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, was the second of its kind found with drug traffickers, the military told the newspaper.
Shabani warned that Iran's drug traffickers were "getting better and better equipped with sophisticated weapons."
Iran is a major point of passage between major drug-producing nations such as Afghanistan and the markets of the Gulf and Europe.
More than 200 tonnes of opium and its derivatives are seized each year by Iranian police - TEHRAN (AFP)
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