Iran

[deltex1]

The United States killed Millions of Iranians and only deserves to have Iran kill millions of Americans.

Oh.

 

[dani67]

Disabled man hanged in western Iran prison http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19742-disabled-man-hanged-in-western-iran-prison…

10 prisoners at imminent risk of execution in Iran http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19741-10-prisoners-at-imminent-risk-of-execution-in-iran…

The West’s Stalwart Ally in the War on Drugs: Iran (Yes, That Iran)


By THOMAS ERDBRINKOCT. 11, 2012

Photo

Iranian border guards displayed packets of seized drugs near the border with Afghanistan.CreditAbedin Taherkenareh/European Pressphoto Agency
Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
HIRMAN, Iran — Sitting next to the half-open door of a Russian-made Mi-17 transport helicopter, the general who leads the Islamic Republic’s antinarcotics department pointed toward the rugged landscape of Iran’s volatile southeast, where its border meets those of Afghanistan andPakistan.

“This is where the drug convoys for years crossed into our country, almost with impunity,” Brig. Gen. Ali Moayedi said in Persian. Below him, sharp-edged mountains gave way to desert lands scarred for mile after mile by trenches nearly 15 feet deep and concrete walls reaching a height of 10 feet.

Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE

• Times Topic: Iran

The earthworks were built by his men in recent years in a determined effort to stop the most prolific flow of drugs in the world, a flood of heroin andopium bound for the Persian Gulf and Europe. Iran, as the first link in that long and lucrative smuggling chain, has for decades fought a lonely battle against drugs that its leaders see as religiously inspired, saying it is their Islamic duty to prevent drug abuse.

Nearly a decade ago Sistan va Baluchestan Province was an active battlefield, where more than 3,900 Iranian border police officers lost their lives fighting often better-equipped Afghan and Pakistani drug gangs along nearly 600 miles of Iran’s eastern border. In those days, smugglers with night-vision equipment would roll over the border in all-terrain vehicles with heavy weapons, actively engaging Iranian law enforcement forces wherever they found them. Security forces were at times dying by the dozen each day.

Now, the country has made a huge turnaround. Its forces are seizing the highest amounts of opiates and heroin worldwide, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which has advised Iran through out the period.

Tehran has long been shy about inviting reporters to these borderlands, particularly during the difficult years when the police were dying in droves. But now, with the prospect of negotiations with the West over Iran’s disputed nuclear enrichment program, experts say, Iran’s leaders are eager to grab credit for their efforts. During previous negotiations Iranian diplomats often pointed at Iran’s high human costs from trying to stop the drug trade, and one influential political adviser, Hamid Reza Taraghi, said that Iran expected to be politically “rewarded” for its efforts.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Up in the air, General Moayedi pointed to the Pakistani-Afghan side of the border, which he said once crawled with smugglers. “Do you see?” he exclaimed, pointing through one of the round windows of the helicopter. “There is nothing there!”

White watchtowers stood like chess pieces at mile intervals along the Iranian side of the border, facing the complete emptiness of Afghanistan and Pakistan. “The smugglers still can come all the way to Iran; nobody stops them on their side,” Mr. Moayedi said as his aviator sunglasses reflected the intense sun. “But we have made it nearly impossible for them to enter our country.”

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Squeezed between a tall plainclothes officer and General Moayedi’s personal bodyguard, Antonino de Leo, the Italian representative for the United Nations drug office in Tehran, showered the Iranians with praise — “because they really deserve it,” he said.

Mr. De Leo, in mountaineering shoes and backpack but remaining true to his stylish Italian background with a white flannel scarf around his neck, is very different from his uniformed Iranian counterparts. But, he said, “I need these people and they need me.”

At the same time that the Iranians were netting eight times more opium and three times more heroin than all the other countries in the world combined, Mr. De Leo said, his office was the smallest in the region and he had to cut back some programs, like drug sniffer dog training, because Western nations had cut back on financing.

“These men are fighting their version of the Colombian war on drugs, but they are not funded with billions of U.S. dollars and are battling against drugs coming from another country,” Mr. De Leo said.

While his colleagues in Afghanistan received $40 million a year in direct aid for counternarcotics programs, he said, they treated 100 addicts last year while Iran was treating hundreds of thousands. His budget was barely $13 million stretched over four years. “It’s all politics,” he said.

When the helicopter landed here at a fort in this desolate landscape it was too close to a party tent, blowing off its roof and setting off panic among the soldiers who had spent four days preparing for the V.I.P. visit.

Zahra, the 11-year-old daughter of one of the 3,900 policemen killed on border duty, welcomed the general, saying she missed her father but was happy that he was with God. Her mother, dressed in a black chador, nodded approvingly.

Armed soldiers stood guard as General Moayedi and Mr. De Leo inspected intercepted packages of opium, heroin and morphine. “There are 100,000 NATO troops based in Afghanistan,” the general said. “Why are they not stopping the flow of drugs into our country?”

He gestured at the latest models of pickup trucks, used to patrol the long straight roads along the fortified walls, and said Iran could easily fend for itself. “But as others sleep comfortably in other countries, my men are here during the hot desert days and cold nights, trying to intercept drugs that would otherwise end up in the West. We are making a sacrifice.”

Mr. De Leo, who is one of the very few Westerners in Iran in direct, daily contact with top law enforcement officials, said his office was under pressure from Western activist groups like Human Rights Watch, which have expressed alarm over the sharp increase in hangings of convicted drug dealers.

Hundreds have been executed in recent years, making Iran the second leading country in the world in death sentences, after China. Mr. De Leo said that he, too, was bothered by the increase in executions, but that the punishments were meted out by Iran’s judiciary, not by its police force.

And though Iran routinely puts drug dealers to death, it also has a range of modern drug rehabilitation programs for its hard-core addicts, who number 1.2 million by official count. The addicts are treated as patients and given methadone and other treatments rather than prison sentences, Iranian families of addicts and foreign diplomats say.

General Moayedi said that he did not concern himself with politics, and that in any case he considered the fight against drugs to be a religious duty.

“But,” he said, “imagine if we just let all those drugs flow freely through our country, toward the West. I guess then the world would understand what we have been doing here for all these years.”

 

[dani67]

Disabled man hanged in western Iran prison http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19742-disabled-man-hanged-in-western-iran-prison…

10 prisoners at imminent risk of execution in Iran http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19741-10-prisoners-at-imminent-risk-of-execution-in-iran…

Smugglers kill Iranian border guard
29 JUNE 2015, 17:57 (GMT+05:00)

• TWITTER0
• LINKEDIN0
• FACEBOOK0

Baku, Azerbaijan, June 29

By Umid Niayesh - Trend:

An Iranian border guard was killed during an armed confrontation with drug smugglers in the country's southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.

The incident took place early morning on June 29 in the Iran-Pakistan border near the city of Saravan when the armed smugglers were crossing the border, Rohambakhsh Habibi, commander of the province's border guards said, Iran 's Fars news agency reported.

The smugglers left their drug consignment and escaped inside Pakistan after the police operation, the commander said, adding some 1.67 metric tons of drugs were seized from the smugglers.

The Iranian commander also accused Pakistan of neglecting the security issue of the joint border with Iran.

Habibi said that Iran has protested to Pakistan officially and the foreign ministry is pursuing the issue.

Iran is situated on a major drug route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Gulf States. The Islamic Republic shares about 900 kilometers of common border with Afghanistan, over which 74 percent of opium is smuggled.

It was reported that some 490 metric tons of drugs were seized in the country during the last fiscal year (ended on March 20).

The fight against drugs annually costs Iran about $1 billion, according to the official estimates.

The statistics also say there are about two million drug users in Iran.

Last February, Rouzbeh Kardouni, the head of Social Vulnerabilities Office at the Iranian Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare said that annually about 450 metric tons of opium is used in Iran, which is equal to 42 percent of total opium consumption in the world.

Edited by CN

 

[dani67]

Disabled man hanged in western Iran prison http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19742-disabled-man-hanged-in-western-iran-prison…

10 prisoners at imminent risk of execution in Iran http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19741-10-prisoners-at-imminent-risk-of-execution-in-iran…

World: Middle East

Drug smugglers kill 35 Iranian police

Iran is on the "Golden Crescent" drugs supply route

By Jim Muir in Tehran

Thirty-five Iranian law enforcement officers have been killed in a clash with drug smugglers in the south of the country, according to officials in Iran.

The deadly encounter took place in the desolate desert wasteland south of the city of Iranshahr.

Drug control officials said that six or seven vehicles loaded with about 50 armed police were sent to a site where they believed a large cache of smuggled drugs had been stored for onward trafficking to Europe.

But the depot was guarded by heavily-armed smugglers who immediately engaged the Iranian forces.

Smugglers flee to Pakistan

A fierce battle broke out which lasted for several hours. It resulted in the 35 Iranian police being killed and a much smaller number injured.

Iranian officials said there were casualties among the smugglers, but they fled across the border into Pakistan, taking their dead and wounded with them.

They left behind large quantities of arms and drugs, mainly morphine and hashish.

Captured narcotics are destroyed

The traffickers are believed to belong to a well-known smuggling ring operating from Pakistan, carrying narcotics produced in Afghanistan through Iran to markets in Europe.

Iran is expected to raise the incident with the Pakistani authorities and to seek their co-operation in tracking down the culprits.

For years now, Iran has been conducting what amounts to a low-level war to try to stem the flow of drugs all along its eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a costly battle in which nearly 3,000 Iranian personnel have been killed.

Iran is being given high credit internationally for its efforts to combat the drugs trade, which threatens its own society as well as others further afield.

 

[dani67]

Disabled man hanged in western Iran prison http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19742-disabled-man-hanged-in-western-iran-prison…

10 prisoners at imminent risk of execution in Iran http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19741-10-prisoners-at-imminent-risk-of-execution-in-iran…

The Dangerous Drug-Funded Secret War Between Iran and Pakistan
Drug smugglers kill three Iran guards near Pakistan border
AFP — PUBLISHED OCT 11, 2012 11:29AM

WHATSAPP

0 COMMENTS

PRINT

An Iranian security officer displays packages of seized Afghan-made drugs during a media tour in Milak, southeastern Iran, near the Afghan border, on Wednesday. – Photo by AFP


TEHRAN: Three Iranian border guards were killed in clashes with armed drug traffickers near the border with Pakistan, Iranian media reported on Thursday, citing a border official.

Two drug traffickers were also killed in the clash near the region of Koshtegan in the southeastern province of Sistan-Balochistan, Colonel Mehdi Mansourzadeh said.

Mansourzadeh said Iran had seized 50 tonnes of various drugs in the frontier regions with Afghanistan and Pakistan during the past six months.

Iran is a major transit route for drugs trafficked from leading narcotics producer Afghanistan, with much of the substances bound for Western countries.

The Islamic republic says it is fighting a deadly war against drug traffickers who make up half its prison population. Drug trafficking is punishable by death.

More than 4,000 police officers and soldiers have been killed during the past three decades in clashes with the traffickers, who often travel in heavily armed convoys, according to officials.

Iran has spent more than $700 million on building a “wall” along lengthy stretches of its 1,700-kilometre (1,050-mile) eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan in a bid to stop the trafficking, officials say.

Tehran's anti-drugs efforts are regularly praised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which regularly provides the country with financial and other assistance.

However, the United States has accused some Iranian officials, particularly within the elite Revolutionary Guards, of facilitating the transit of drugs produced in Afghanistan in exchange for the services of drug lords in its eastern neighbour.

Iranian officials in return accuse Western and Israeli intelligence services of promoting drug in Iran in an effort to destabilise the country.

 

[dani67]

Disabled man hanged in western Iran prison http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19742-disabled-man-hanged-in-western-iran-prison…

10 prisoners at imminent risk of execution in Iran http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19741-10-prisoners-at-imminent-risk-of-execution-in-iran…

Iran's War on Drugs: Holding the Line?
By John Calabrese | Asst Prof / Director Middle East-Asia Project (MAP) - American University / Middle East Institute | Dec 01, 2007




Tweet

Calabrese Cover

Drugs and Counter-Drug Policies in Iran: A Brief Historical Excursion

Drugs and stimulants have influenced Iranian social, economic, and political life for hundreds of years.1 Opium, specifically, has long been used in Iran for medicinal and recreational purposes. In the 18th and early 19th century, opium was produced in Iran mainly for domestic consumption. The expansion of the Far Eastern market in the late 1800s spurred an increase in opium cultivation in Iran. As a result, opium became Iran’s top export while domestic consumption also rose.2

Throughout the 20th century, Iran grappled, largely unsuccessfully, with the problems of opium addiction and trafficking. Government policies alternated between severe punishment and regulation. The first law to control opium use was enacted in 1911. A little over a decade later, the government issued ration coupons to addicts and imposed levies on opium exports. Contrary to expectations, however, opium use did not slacken, and opium exports actually increased. In fact, by the late 1920s, opium accounted for nearly a quarter of Iran’s total export revenues.3

In 1928, international pressure led Iran’s government to claim a monopoly on opium and to pledge to reduce poppy cultivation and demand. Yet, in the subsequent 10-year period, the area under poppy cultivation expanded, as did the volume of opium exports.4 Similarly, the 1955 “Law on Prohibition of Opium Poppy Cultivation and Taking Opium” had perverse effects  stimulating production in Afghanistan and Pakistan, making the smuggling of heroin and morphine from there into Iran profitable, and ultimately leading to an upsurge in the number of Iranian addicts and incarcerated smugglers.

These unwelcome developments prompted an eventual policy shift. In the late 1960s, the Shah’s government permitted the resumption of opium cultivation in designated areas under state supervision while at the same time making drug smuggling a capital offense punishable by death. In addition, the government instituted a system of opium rationing for addicts 50 years of age and older as well as for patients as prescribed by physicians; and laid the groundwork for establishing a nationwide system of health clinics and rehabilitation centers for addicts. However, these latter plans went unfinished, as Iran entered a period of revolutionary turmoil.

The Iranian Revolution (1979) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) coincided with the protracted conflict in Afghanistan precipitated by the Soviet invasion. During this same period, Afghanistan emerged as the world’s leading opium poppy producer while Iranian consumption of opiates surged in spite of the revolutionary government’s imposition of harsh criminal penalties (in August 1980) for all forms of substance abuse. Throughout the 1990s, Afghan poppy production flourished; meanwhile, in Iran, heroin use increased, as did heroin use by means of injection.5 The ban on poppy cultivation by the Taliban in 2000 resulted in shortages in the availability of opium, which shifted the drug consumption pattern in Iran toward even greater heroin use and addiction.6

Iran and the Geometry of the Drug Trade
Iran is a key link in a complex transnational opiates supply chain that is anchored in southwest Asia.7 Known as the “Golden Crescent,” this production and trans-shipment zone encompasses the isolated mountain valleys of Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. At the core of the Golden Crescent lies Afghanistan, the source of about 92% of the world’s heroin.8 The 2006 Afghanistan Annual Opium Poppy Survey reported an all-time record high harvest, with total cultivation up 59% and production up 49% from the previous year. According to the 2007 Afghanistan Survey, production is 34% higher than in 2006.9 Figure 1 shows Afghanistan’s share of opium poppy cultivation in recent years.

Two primary routes are used to smuggle heroin originating from Afghanistan. The Balkan Route, which runs through southeastern Europe, is the main supply line for Western Europe.10 The Silk Route, which runs through Central Asia, feeds heroin into Russia, the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and other parts of Europe.11 While in recent years the Silk Route has become increasingly active, the lion’s share of Afghan opiates continues to pass through Iran along the Balkan Route as well as southward toward the Persian Gulf. The UNODC estimates that 60% of the heroin and morphine from Afghanistan moves through Iran to the external market, principally to Europe. The Iranian passageway is attractive to drug traffickers for the simple reason that they must cross just two borders to get to the European market.

Dotting Iran’s eastern borders — a 936-kilometer stretch shared with Afghanistan and 909-kilometer segment shared with Pakistan — are numerous entry points for smuggled consignments of opiates. Three main supply lines carry these shipments from Iran’s eastern frontier into and across the country: Northern (Khorasan), Southern (Sistan va Baluchistan), and Hormuzgan. The Northern and Southern lines are connected to the traditional Balkan network. The Hormuzgan line flows to Bandar Abbas, whose airport and ferry links to Dubai make it an easy trans-shipment point for deliveries to Europe and the Gulf, as well as incoming chemical precursors destined for heroin labs in Afghanistan.12

Figure 1


United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2007, Figure 15, p. 41.

Iran and the neighbors on its eastern flank are classic “weak states.” As such, their respective central authorities have traditionally lacked the capacity and the legitimacy to extend their writ to peripheral areas. Yet, these very areas are critically important nodal points in the highly segmented Iranian domestic and international opiates supply chain. It is therefore not surprising that the territory of Baluchistan — a predominantly Sunni-populated ethnic-Baluch region that straddles the borders of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan — has been a major opiates smuggling thoroughfare.

Indeed, Zahedan, the capital of the Iranian province of Sistan va Baluchistan, is a vital staging point for opiates trafficking. The province — desolate and underdeveloped — is notoriously lawless. In the 1970s, Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi reached an accommodation with Baluchi clan leaders whereby they would abandon drug smuggling in exchange for government cash benefits. But in the post-revolutionary period, this arrangement broke down amid a general deterioration of the relationship between Tehran and Baluchi clans.13

Major Trafficking Routes

 

[deltex1]

Disabled man hanged in western Iran prison http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19742-disabled-man-hanged-in-western-iran-prison…

10 prisoners at imminent risk of execution in Iran http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19741-10-prisoners-at-imminent-risk-of-execution-in-iran…

The West’s Stalwart Ally in the War on Drugs: Iran (Yes, That Iran)


By THOMAS ERDBRINKOCT. 11, 2012

Photo

Iranian border guards displayed packets of seized drugs near the border with Afghanistan.CreditAbedin Taherkenareh/European Pressphoto Agency
Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
HIRMAN, Iran — Sitting next to the half-open door of a Russian-made Mi-17 transport helicopter, the general who leads the Islamic Republic’s antinarcotics department pointed toward the rugged landscape of Iran’s volatile southeast, where its border meets those of Afghanistan andPakistan.

“This is where the drug convoys for years crossed into our country, almost with impunity,” Brig. Gen. Ali Moayedi said in Persian. Below him, sharp-edged mountains gave way to desert lands scarred for mile after mile by trenches nearly 15 feet deep and concrete walls reaching a height of 10 feet.

Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE

• Times Topic: Iran

The earthworks were built by his men in recent years in a determined effort to stop the most prolific flow of drugs in the world, a flood of heroin andopium bound for the Persian Gulf and Europe. Iran, as the first link in that long and lucrative smuggling chain, has for decades fought a lonely battle against drugs that its leaders see as religiously inspired, saying it is their Islamic duty to prevent drug abuse.

Nearly a decade ago Sistan va Baluchestan Province was an active battlefield, where more than 3,900 Iranian border police officers lost their lives fighting often better-equipped Afghan and Pakistani drug gangs along nearly 600 miles of Iran’s eastern border. In those days, smugglers with night-vision equipment would roll over the border in all-terrain vehicles with heavy weapons, actively engaging Iranian law enforcement forces wherever they found them. Security forces were at times dying by the dozen each day.

Now, the country has made a huge turnaround. Its forces are seizing the highest amounts of opiates and heroin worldwide, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which has advised Iran through out the period.

Tehran has long been shy about inviting reporters to these borderlands, particularly during the difficult years when the police were dying in droves. But now, with the prospect of negotiations with the West over Iran’s disputed nuclear enrichment program, experts say, Iran’s leaders are eager to grab credit for their efforts. During previous negotiations Iranian diplomats often pointed at Iran’s high human costs from trying to stop the drug trade, and one influential political adviser, Hamid Reza Taraghi, said that Iran expected to be politically “rewarded” for its efforts.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Up in the air, General Moayedi pointed to the Pakistani-Afghan side of the border, which he said once crawled with smugglers. “Do you see?” he exclaimed, pointing through one of the round windows of the helicopter. “There is nothing there!”

White watchtowers stood like chess pieces at mile intervals along the Iranian side of the border, facing the complete emptiness of Afghanistan and Pakistan. “The smugglers still can come all the way to Iran; nobody stops them on their side,” Mr. Moayedi said as his aviator sunglasses reflected the intense sun. “But we have made it nearly impossible for them to enter our country.”

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Squeezed between a tall plainclothes officer and General Moayedi’s personal bodyguard, Antonino de Leo, the Italian representative for the United Nations drug office in Tehran, showered the Iranians with praise — “because they really deserve it,” he said.

Mr. De Leo, in mountaineering shoes and backpack but remaining true to his stylish Italian background with a white flannel scarf around his neck, is very different from his uniformed Iranian counterparts. But, he said, “I need these people and they need me.”

At the same time that the Iranians were netting eight times more opium and three times more heroin than all the other countries in the world combined, Mr. De Leo said, his office was the smallest in the region and he had to cut back some programs, like drug sniffer dog training, because Western nations had cut back on financing.

“These men are fighting their version of the Colombian war on drugs, but they are not funded with billions of U.S. dollars and are battling against drugs coming from another country,” Mr. De Leo said.

While his colleagues in Afghanistan received $40 million a year in direct aid for counternarcotics programs, he said, they treated 100 addicts last year while Iran was treating hundreds of thousands. His budget was barely $13 million stretched over four years. “It’s all politics,” he said.

When the helicopter landed here at a fort in this desolate landscape it was too close to a party tent, blowing off its roof and setting off panic among the soldiers who had spent four days preparing for the V.I.P. visit.

Zahra, the 11-year-old daughter of one of the 3,900 policemen killed on border duty, welcomed the general, saying she missed her father but was happy that he was with God. Her mother, dressed in a black chador, nodded approvingly.

Armed soldiers stood guard as General Moayedi and Mr. De Leo inspected intercepted packages of opium, heroin and morphine. “There are 100,000 NATO troops based in Afghanistan,” the general said. “Why are they not stopping the flow of drugs into our country?”

He gestured at the latest models of pickup trucks, used to patrol the long straight roads along the fortified walls, and said Iran could easily fend for itself. “But as others sleep comfortably in other countries, my men are here during the hot desert days and cold nights, trying to intercept drugs that would otherwise end up in the West. We are making a sacrifice.”

Mr. De Leo, who is one of the very few Westerners in Iran in direct, daily contact with top law enforcement officials, said his office was under pressure from Western activist groups like Human Rights Watch, which have expressed alarm over the sharp increase in hangings of convicted drug dealers.

Hundreds have been executed in recent years, making Iran the second leading country in the world in death sentences, after China. Mr. De Leo said that he, too, was bothered by the increase in executions, but that the punishments were meted out by Iran’s judiciary, not by its police force.

And though Iran routinely puts drug dealers to death, it also has a range of modern drug rehabilitation programs for its hard-core addicts, who number 1.2 million by official count. The addicts are treated as patients and given methadone and other treatments rather than prison sentences, Iranian families of addicts and foreign diplomats say.

General Moayedi said that he did not concern himself with politics, and that in any case he considered the fight against drugs to be a religious duty.

“But,” he said, “imagine if we just let all those drugs flow freely through our country, toward the West. I guess then the world would understand what we have been doing here for all these years.”

Why would Iran protect the West from drugs? Would drugs not weaken their sworn enemy...not to mention make them money?

 

[alpine]

IRAN is the natural ALLY for US, not the SAUDIS...

 

[dani67]

Disabled man hanged in western Iran prison http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19742-disabled-man-hanged-in-western-iran-prison…

10 prisoners at imminent risk of execution in Iran http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/19741-10-prisoners-at-imminent-risk-of-execution-in-iran…

The West’s Stalwart Ally in the War on Drugs: Iran (Yes, That Iran)


By THOMAS ERDBRINKOCT. 11, 2012

Photo

Iranian border guards displayed packets of seized drugs near the border with Afghanistan.CreditAbedin Taherkenareh/European Pressphoto Agency
Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
HIRMAN, Iran — Sitting next to the half-open door of a Russian-made Mi-17 transport helicopter, the general who leads the Islamic Republic’s antinarcotics department pointed toward the rugged landscape of Iran’s volatile southeast, where its border meets those of Afghanistan andPakistan.

“This is where the drug convoys for years crossed into our country, almost with impunity,” Brig. Gen. Ali Moayedi said in Persian. Below him, sharp-edged mountains gave way to desert lands scarred for mile after mile by trenches nearly 15 feet deep and concrete walls reaching a height of 10 feet.

Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE

• Times Topic: Iran

The earthworks were built by his men in recent years in a determined effort to stop the most prolific flow of drugs in the world, a flood of heroin andopium bound for the Persian Gulf and Europe. Iran, as the first link in that long and lucrative smuggling chain, has for decades fought a lonely battle against drugs that its leaders see as religiously inspired, saying it is their Islamic duty to prevent drug abuse.

Nearly a decade ago Sistan va Baluchestan Province was an active battlefield, where more than 3,900 Iranian border police officers lost their lives fighting often better-equipped Afghan and Pakistani drug gangs along nearly 600 miles of Iran’s eastern border. In those days, smugglers with night-vision equipment would roll over the border in all-terrain vehicles with heavy weapons, actively engaging Iranian law enforcement forces wherever they found them. Security forces were at times dying by the dozen each day.

Now, the country has made a huge turnaround. Its forces are seizing the highest amounts of opiates and heroin worldwide, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which has advised Iran through out the period.

Tehran has long been shy about inviting reporters to these borderlands, particularly during the difficult years when the police were dying in droves. But now, with the prospect of negotiations with the West over Iran’s disputed nuclear enrichment program, experts say, Iran’s leaders are eager to grab credit for their efforts. During previous negotiations Iranian diplomats often pointed at Iran’s high human costs from trying to stop the drug trade, and one influential political adviser, Hamid Reza Taraghi, said that Iran expected to be politically “rewarded” for its efforts.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Up in the air, General Moayedi pointed to the Pakistani-Afghan side of the border, which he said once crawled with smugglers. “Do you see?” he exclaimed, pointing through one of the round windows of the helicopter. “There is nothing there!”

White watchtowers stood like chess pieces at mile intervals along the Iranian side of the border, facing the complete emptiness of Afghanistan and Pakistan. “The smugglers still can come all the way to Iran; nobody stops them on their side,” Mr. Moayedi said as his aviator sunglasses reflected the intense sun. “But we have made it nearly impossible for them to enter our country.”

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Squeezed between a tall plainclothes officer and General Moayedi’s personal bodyguard, Antonino de Leo, the Italian representative for the United Nations drug office in Tehran, showered the Iranians with praise — “because they really deserve it,” he said.

Mr. De Leo, in mountaineering shoes and backpack but remaining true to his stylish Italian background with a white flannel scarf around his neck, is very different from his uniformed Iranian counterparts. But, he said, “I need these people and they need me.”

At the same time that the Iranians were netting eight times more opium and three times more heroin than all the other countries in the world combined, Mr. De Leo said, his office was the smallest in the region and he had to cut back some programs, like drug sniffer dog training, because Western nations had cut back on financing.

“These men are fighting their version of the Colombian war on drugs, but they are not funded with billions of U.S. dollars and are battling against drugs coming from another country,” Mr. De Leo said.

While his colleagues in Afghanistan received $40 million a year in direct aid for counternarcotics programs, he said, they treated 100 addicts last year while Iran was treating hundreds of thousands. His budget was barely $13 million stretched over four years. “It’s all politics,” he said.

When the helicopter landed here at a fort in this desolate landscape it was too close to a party tent, blowing off its roof and setting off panic among the soldiers who had spent four days preparing for the V.I.P. visit.

Zahra, the 11-year-old daughter of one of the 3,900 policemen killed on border duty, welcomed the general, saying she missed her father but was happy that he was with God. Her mother, dressed in a black chador, nodded approvingly.

Armed soldiers stood guard as General Moayedi and Mr. De Leo inspected intercepted packages of opium, heroin and morphine. “There are 100,000 NATO troops based in Afghanistan,” the general said. “Why are they not stopping the flow of drugs into our country?”

He gestured at the latest models of pickup trucks, used to patrol the long straight roads along the fortified walls, and said Iran could easily fend for itself. “But as others sleep comfortably in other countries, my men are here during the hot desert days and cold nights, trying to intercept drugs that would otherwise end up in the West. We are making a sacrifice.”

Mr. De Leo, who is one of the very few Westerners in Iran in direct, daily contact with top law enforcement officials, said his office was under pressure from Western activist groups like Human Rights Watch, which have expressed alarm over the sharp increase in hangings of convicted drug dealers.

Hundreds have been executed in recent years, making Iran the second leading country in the world in death sentences, after China. Mr. De Leo said that he, too, was bothered by the increase in executions, but that the punishments were meted out by Iran’s judiciary, not by its police force.

And though Iran routinely puts drug dealers to death, it also has a range of modern drug rehabilitation programs for its hard-core addicts, who number 1.2 million by official count. The addicts are treated as patients and given methadone and other treatments rather than prison sentences, Iranian families of addicts and foreign diplomats say.

General Moayedi said that he did not concern himself with politics, and that in any case he considered the fight against drugs to be a religious duty.

“But,” he said, “imagine if we just let all those drugs flow freely through our country, toward the West. I guess then the world would understand what we have been doing here for all these years.”

Why would Iran protect the West from drugs? Would drugs not weaken their sworn enemy...not to mention make them money?

when i was soldier.its my question too.my officer said to me

1:usa people isnt our enemy
2:european isnt our enemy
3:iran is first victim of afghanistan and pakistan drugs.
if smuglers be rich by west moneys.they can use it against iran too
nobody like rich drug dealers

 

[dani67]

IRAN is the natural ALLY for US, not the SAUDIS...

maybe they are ally now and just playing with us
for example.arab country was biggest enemy of israel.
but arab nation are israel allies now because of iran fear.most arab country dont care palestinis anymore .because of iran
1:taliban
2:al qaede
3:drugs
4:isis
5ower balance in middle east

 

[dani67]

iran revoulution guardian cantrolling- watching iraq-karbala roads for isis threat
its 700 km road

 

[deltex1]

IRAN is the natural ALLY for US, not the SAUDIS...

maybe they are ally now and just playing with us
for example.arab country was biggest enemy of israel.
but arab nation are israel allies now because of iran fear.most arab country dont care palestinis anymore .because of iran
1:taliban
2:al qaede
3:drugs
4:isis
5ower balance in middle east

I think maybe you need to take another shot at that..not clear to me what you are saying. anyone else?

 

[dani67]

IRAN is the natural ALLY for US, not the SAUDIS...

maybe they are ally now and just playing with us
for example.arab country was biggest enemy of israel.
but arab nation are israel allies now because of iran fear.most arab country dont care palestinis anymore .because of iran
1:taliban
2:al qaede
3:drugs
4:isis
5ower balance in middle east

I think maybe you need to take another shot at that..not clear to me what you are saying. anyone else?

maybe iran regime and usa and israel are bluffing to other middle east country
for example.:
Iran Is the Greatest Threat to arabs country like suidi arabia
west country sell their weapon to arabs country because of iran threat
or israel is arabs friend now.why? because of iran
is it clear?

 

[deltex1]

IRAN is the natural ALLY for US, not the SAUDIS...

maybe they are ally now and just playing with us
for example.arab country was biggest enemy of israel.
but arab nation are israel allies now because of iran fear.most arab country dont care palestinis anymore .because of iran
1:taliban
2:al qaede
3:drugs
4:isis
5ower balance in middle east

I think maybe you need to take another shot at that..not clear to me what you are saying. anyone else?

maybe iran regime and usa and israel are bluffing to other middle east country
for example.:
Iran Is the Greatest Threat to arabs country like suidi arabia
west country sell their weapon to arabs country because of iran threat
or israel is arabs friend now.why? because of iran
is it clear?

I could be wrong but I do not get the impression that the US sees Israel as a friend to Arab nations....at least not yet. Israel sees Iran as their biggest threat. I'm not sure what Obama thinks...but I would wager our military sees Iran as a much bigger problem than Isis....for sure over the long haul.

 

[dani67]

IRAN is the natural ALLY for US, not the SAUDIS...

maybe they are ally now and just playing with us
for example.arab country was biggest enemy of israel.
but arab nation are israel allies now because of iran fear.most arab country dont care palestinis anymore .because of iran
1:taliban
2:al qaede
3:drugs
4:isis
5ower balance in middle east

I think maybe you need to take another shot at that..not clear to me what you are saying. anyone else?

maybe iran regime and usa and israel are bluffing to other middle east country
for example.:
Iran Is the Greatest Threat to arabs country like suidi arabia
west country sell their weapon to arabs country because of iran threat
or israel is arabs friend now.why? because of iran
is it clear?

I could be wrong but I do not get the impression that the US sees Israel as a friend to Arab nations....at least not yet. Israel sees Iran as their biggest threat. I'm not sure what Obama thinks...but I would wager our military sees Iran as a much bigger problem than Isis....for sure over the long haul.

maybe they lie.
remember iran-contra

 

[deltex1]

IRAN is the natural ALLY for US, not the SAUDIS...

maybe they are ally now and just playing with us
for example.arab country was biggest enemy of israel.
but arab nation are israel allies now because of iran fear.most arab country dont care palestinis anymore .because of iran
1:taliban
2:al qaede
3:drugs
4:isis
5ower balance in middle east

I think maybe you need to take another shot at that..not clear to me what you are saying. anyone else?

maybe iran regime and usa and israel are bluffing to other middle east country
for example.:
Iran Is the Greatest Threat to arabs country like suidi arabia
west country sell their weapon to arabs country because of iran threat
or israel is arabs friend now.why? because of iran
is it clear?

I could be wrong but I do not get the impression that the US sees Israel as a friend to Arab nations....at least not yet. Israel sees Iran as their biggest threat. I'm not sure what Obama thinks...but I would wager our military sees Iran as a much bigger problem than Isis....for sure over the long haul.

maybe they lie.
remember iran-contra

You had not been born yet. Ha!

You stay up late...no work tomorrow?

 

[dani67]

maybe they are ally now and just playing with us
for example.arab country was biggest enemy of israel.
but arab nation are israel allies now because of iran fear.most arab country dont care palestinis anymore .because of iran
1:taliban
2:al qaede
3:drugs
4:isis
5ower balance in middle east

I think maybe you need to take another shot at that..not clear to me what you are saying. anyone else?

maybe iran regime and usa and israel are bluffing to other middle east country
for example.:
Iran Is the Greatest Threat to arabs country like suidi arabia
west country sell their weapon to arabs country because of iran threat
or israel is arabs friend now.why? because of iran
is it clear?

I could be wrong but I do not get the impression that the US sees Israel as a friend to Arab nations....at least not yet. Israel sees Iran as their biggest threat. I'm not sure what Obama thinks...but I would wager our military sees Iran as a much bigger problem than Isis....for sure over the long haul.

maybe they lie.
remember iran-contra

You had not been born yet. Ha!

You stay up late...no work tomorrow?

beach tourism bussiness at 38 f and heavy rain
. im in force holiday now looool

 

[alpine]

IRAN is the natural ALLY for US, not the SAUDIS...

maybe they are ally now and just playing with us
for example.arab country was biggest enemy of israel.
but arab nation are israel allies now because of iran fear.most arab country dont care palestinis anymore .because of iran
1:taliban
2:al qaede
3:drugs
4:isis
5ower balance in middle east

I think maybe you need to take another shot at that..not clear to me what you are saying. anyone else?

What he is saying, overall, is that Iran is a much more progressive society compared to Saudis. If US is looking for an ally for her people, IRAN is a better match rather than SAUDIS.

But if US is looking for a match for her corporate giants to take advantage of, of course, SAUDIS with their backwardness and ignorance, seem like a better match than IRANIANS in that sense....

 

[the_human_being]

 

[Tilly]

The real Iran
Many people have posted pictures of Iran to "dispel the myth" that Iran is a backwards country with people who need to be "liberated". They then proceed to perpetuate that myth with pictures of goats and barns and other B.S.


I won't do that here. The fact of the matter is that a majority of Iranians live at least as well as Americans. Iran is a first world country which aside from mandating women wear a head scarf (and men not walk around half naked), actually allows people to live their lives as they wish with far less interference than in America. That's the real truth about Iran, and the following pictures PROVE IT.


This is Tehran

This is the city that Iran built the nuclear reactor for

Notice, more so than Americans, the people are INDIVIDUALS - it's OBVIOUS!

This is another major Iranian city

Another Iranian city

Here are some BADLY BEATEN Iranian women (according to CNN)

Here is Tehran at night

Another shot of Tehran

Here are some Iranian goat herders

Here are the "tents" they live in.

I bet you did not know Iran has the world's best snow (this is absolutely true, Iran is rated number 1, and they make use of it:

You are now just endlessly spamming the board with propaganda cherry picked pics. Please cut it down at least?