Iran-made weapons for Taliban are seized

It's the first sign that the nation has a role in Afghan war
By PETER SPIEGELLos Angeles Times


ATTACK A powerful remote-controlled bomb destroyed a U.N. vehicle in southern Afghanistan's main city on Tuesday, killing four Nepalese guards and an Afghan driver, officials said.

The attack on a three-vehicle U.N. convoy in Kandahar was the bloodiest in Afghanistan for the world body since the Taliban's 2001 ouster.

Associated Press -->
WASHINGTON — U.S.-led coalition forces in southern Afghanistan recently intercepted Iranian-made weapons that were being shipped to fighters for the Taliban, historically regional rivals of Tehran, the Pentagon's top general said Tuesday.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the munitions, which included mortars and C-4 explosives, were captured within the past month near Kandahar, which serves as the military and administrative capital for the restive south. That region has been under renewed Taliban assault in recent months.

The Bush administration repeatedly has accused Iran of supplying insurgents in Iraq with sophisticated weaponry. Pace's remarks were the first by a senior U.S. official to indicate similar activities in Afghani-stan.

Exact source unclearPace said it remained unclear who shipped the arms, but that markings on the explosives enabled U.S. intelligence to identify them as Iranian-made. "It is not as clear in Afghani-stan which Iranian entity is responsible," Pace said. In Iraq, U.S. officials have accused the Quds Force, the international arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, but have said it remained unclear whether Quds operatives were acting at the behest of senior Iranian officials in Tehran.
The Bush administration has acknowledged that Iran has been active inside Afghanistan, but officials have described the influence as benign.

Historically, the Shiite Muslim government in Tehran has viewed the Taliban as archrivals and nearly went to war with the Sunni-dominated Taliban in 1998, when the Kabul government captured and killed dozens of Iranians in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif during a rebellion.