US: Nato has proof of Iranian shipments to Taliban

NATO has intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to Afghan- istan’s Taliban insurgents, providing evidence that Iran is violating international law to aid a group it once considered a bitter enemy, a senior US diplomat said yesterday.

“There’s irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this,” US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on CNN. “It’s certainly coming from the government of Iran. It’s coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government.”

Mr Burns has also said that Nato must act to stop the shipments. The Iran-Afghanistan frontier is “a very long border. But the Iranians need to know that we are there and that we’re going to oppose this”, he said.

“It’s a very serious question,” he said, adding that Iran is in “outright violation” of UN Security Council resolutions.

The US State Department later appeared to step back from Mr Burns’ assertion the Iranian government was directly involved but stressed Washington has proof that weapons from Iran were being sent to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

“We absolutely are certain that there are Iranian-origin weapons flowing into Afghanistan to the Taliban,” spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

“We do not know the extent of any Iranian government involvement at this point, but given the nature of the regime and also some of its past behaviours elsewhere — whether in the Palestinian areas or in Iraq — it certainly raises very serious questions and we are quite concerned about it,” he said.

Tehran denies it is aiding the Taliban saying it makes no sense that a Shiite-led government would help the fundamentalist Sunni movement of the Taliban.

Mr Burns acknowledged that it was “curious” that Iran would aid the Taliban.

He did not give details on the scope of the alleged Iranian shipments, but appeared to indicate that they were limited.