Iranian security forces have killed 12 drug smugglers

Iranian security forces have killed 12 drug smugglers and seized 500 kg of narcotics in two operations near the border with Afghanistan, state media said on Wednesday.The drug traffickers were killed near the city of Taibad in Khorasan Razavi province in the last 48 hours, the official IRNA news agency said, without elaborating.Iran is on the heroin smuggling route to the West from Afghanistan, the world's number one producer of the opium poppy which is the key ingredient for heroin.More than 3,300 Iranian security personnel have died fighting drug smugglers since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.