TEHRAN (Reuters) -- Iranian police said on Saturday they had found papers linking Britain and the United States to bandits in a border province which is a drug smuggling centre.

Iranian police spokesman Mehdi Ahmadi said security forces had destroyed a bandit stronghold in the Pirsuran mountains of Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. The main opium smuggling route to Europe crosses the province.

"These people were involved in evil deeds," Ahmadi said.

"We found important documents regarding the involvement of foreigners and countries like America and Britain in incidents in eastern Iran," he said.

More than 3,300 Iranian security personnel have died fighting drug traffickers in Sistan-Baluchistan since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Abdolmohammad Raoufinejad, governor of neighboring Kerman province, said bandits using the stronghold that was destroyed had killed 11 people beside a road in his province last Saturday.

"Behind the curtain, the Zionists and the Americans were plotting that incident," he told the official IRNA news agency.