Tehran, April 13, IRNA -- Police in Iran have recently seized 824 kilos of illegal drugs, mostly opium, during a series of operations in which three smugglers were killed and 18 others injured, police officials said Saturday. The biggest seizure, amounting to 697 kilos, was made in the city of Iranshahr in the Sistan Baluchestan province, where four fire arms were also confiscated. The rest of the hauls were made in the provinces of southern Fars and southeastern Khorasan. Meanwhile, a police head said Saturday that some 877 kilos of narcotics had been seized in the south of the Tehran province in the last Iranian year which ended on March 20, 2001. The bulk of the seizures was opium, weighing 534 kilos, besides 118 kilos of hashish plus other drug assortments. Police dismantled 72 gangs of drug traffickers in the period and arrested 12,910 people on drug-related offenses. An official in the southeastern city of Kerman said Saturday that police in the Kerman province had seized 100 kilos of morphine from drug traffickers in recent days. Iran accounts for 80 percent of the opium and 90 percent of the morphine intercepted in the world, according to the International Narcotics Control Board. The Islamic Republic has launched a relentless anti-drug campaign since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, in which more than 3,100 policemen have lost their lives. Iran's anti-drug campaign costs the country 800 million dollars per year, according to officials. An official said recently that the Iranian police had seized 112 tons of illegal drugs and arrested 306,000 people on drug-related charges during last Iranian year which ended on March 21, 2001.