TEHRAN: Iran's state television says a police helicopter crash in southeast Iran has killed three people.

Monday's report quotes a local security official, Javad Kamali, as saying the helicopter was on its way back from an assignment when it crashed near Kerman city, some 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) southeast of the capital, Tehran.

Kamali said the pilot, flight engineer and a police officer were killed in the crash and three others were injured.

He did not identify the type of helicopter or describe the mission it was conducting.

The area near Kerman witnesses frequent clashes between police and drug smugglers who transit narcotics to markets in the Persian Gulf region and Europe.