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Police overwhelmed as drugs from Iran flood Basra

Iraqi police are unable to keep up with increasing drug smuggling from Iran, and Basra, the hardest-hit province, has neither a rehabilitation center for drug addiction nor the resources to prosecute drug-trafficking gangs.
Iraqi border police officers patrol near the border with Iran in the southern province of Basra September 4, 2010. The police border conduct regular patrols, raids and search operations in the border with Iran against gangs, drugs and weapon caches, a source of police border commandership said on Saturday in Basra.   REUTERS/Atef Hassan (IRAQ - Tags: CONFLICT MILITARY) - RTR2HXLA

In the oil-rich city of Basra in southern Iraq, drug-trafficking gangs are gaining power. Through certain areas on the Iraqi-Iranian border, drugs come in from Iran to be consumed in Basra or smuggled to other Iraqi cities.

On Oct. 4, forces from the anti-drug office of the Basra police were able to arrest one drug dealer. However, local authorities are unable to touch major drug-trafficking gangs, because the local police lack the expertise and means to do so and thus only arrests middlemen and drug users.

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