Iran tries to tame Wild East

The Iranian parliament has passed a bill obliging the government to spend an additional twenty-five million dollars to tighten its eastern border with Afghanistan.

The move follows concern over increasing drug smuggling from Afghanistan and kidnappings for ransom.

A BBC correspondent says Iran has already spent huge sums of money trying to tame the unruly mixture of drug smuggling, banditry and tribalism that make this Iran's Wild East.

But he says these remote and rugged areas are notoriously hard to police.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service