The capture has further infuriated many Afghans who have lost patience with Iran for its game-playing on fuel supplies—blocking tanker trucks carrying fuel from Iraq and Turkmenistan and only allowing trucks carrying Iranian fuel to enter Afghanistan, in effect kicking Afghanistan in the shins to force it buy from Iran.
But the western countries with troops in Afghanistan are also incensed. For years, US officers have played down Iranian arms supplies to the Taliban saying they involved small shipments of minor weapons that were intended only to maintain Iran’s role as a player.
But the weapons stock just captured includes 48 122mm rockets, which have a range of 20 kilometers (12 miles), twice that of the rockets Iran has previously supplied.
A spokeswoman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the international coalition with troops in Afghanistan, said, “These rockets have a further distance than anything that has previously been found.… That is what makes the find so significant.”
But in testimony to Congress Tuesday, Gen. David Petraeus, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, played down the delivery, as he has played other seizures of Iranian arms over the years. Petraeus said that “without question” Iran provides the Taliban with “weapons, training and funding.” But he said the aid comes in “measured amounts”—enough “to make life difficult for us, but not enough [for the Taliban] to actually succeed.”
The weapons were sized February 5 in Nimroz, the southwesternmost Afghan province abutting Iran. The manufacturing labels had been removed, but western officers said a month-long analysis of those rockets proved they were made in Iran.
The Islamic Republic, however, denied the Western charge, labeling it “baseless and unacceptable.”
In London, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague agreed that the supply of arms was “unacceptable.” He said the British ambassador in Tehran had raised the shipment with officials in Tehran.
Hague said, “I am extremely concerned by the latest evidence that Iran continues to supply the Taliban with weaponry—weapons clearly intended to provide the Taliban with the capability to kill Afghan and ISAF soldiers from significant range. It is not the behavior of a responsible neighbor. It is at odds with Iran’s claim to the international community and to its own people that it supports stability and security in Afghanistan.”
British officers said the rockets were seized after a heavy firefight that British Special Forces had with a ban of insurgents who fled and left the rockets behind in three trucks.
Only last month, US Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, ISAF’s deputy chief of staff, played down Iranian support for insurgents. He said the supplies were limited and “not a major concern.” But he added hat Iran could increase its support “overnight.”
In Tehran, the state news agency had a unique way to respond to the charge. It carried a “news” story quoting an unnamed source as saying the British government had supplied the Taliban with a new stock of weapons. It said the rationale for the supply was to pave the way for talks with the Taliban.
