Cooperation Rises between Iran and Taliban
As Tensions with United States Escalate, Iran Supplying the Taliban with Money, Weapons to Fuel Fight

By Lara Logan

* Play CBS Video Video Afghan City's Strong Iran Ties

Allegations have emerged that the Afghan city of Herat now serves as a site where weapons and supplies are smuggled from Iran. Chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports from Kabul.

* U.S. military officials have said that Iran is sending money and weapons onto the Afghan battlefield. Photo

U.S. military officials have said that Iran is sending money and weapons onto the Afghan battlefield. (CBS)

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(CBS) The ancient city of Herat is Afghanistan's best-kept secret.

For years, it has enjoyed 24-hour electricity and a booming economy, reports CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan.

But it's not thanks to U.S. efforts - it's all because of Iran.

The city lies right on Afghanistan's border with Iran, fueling strong economic ties. But lately Iran's been making a different kind-of investment - one increasingly worrying to the United States: it's backing the Taliban.

A soldier from 7th Group Special Forces finds rocket propelled grenades in a hard-core Taliban village that he knows from experience, are made in Iran.

"Like right here, it says 82 mm "h-e" lot 02 slash 87," the solider said. "The Iranians pretty much copy all of our ordinance, pretty much verbatim. They'll even put English writing on there. But these lot numbers you'll never see a U.S. lot number like that."

The find confirms what U.S. commanders and troops in Afghanistan are seeing more often - a rise in the level of cooperation between Iran and the Taliban.

"I think Iran feels threatened," said David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert. "And I think it feels that its interests are best served by being able to hurt the United States in Afghanistan."

Video: Afghan City's Strong Ties to Iran

CBS News Special Report: The Road Ahead

The west of Afghanistan, bordering Iran, is fast becoming a graveyard for U.S. forces. U.S. deaths there have spiked from four a year since the war began, to 13 in the last five months alone.

U.S. military officials have told CBS News that Iran is sending money and weapons onto the Afghan battlefield. But U.S. commanders are not allowed to comment publicly and it's unclear to them what the U.S. strategy is for dealing with Iran's increasingly deadly involvement.

The deadliest form of roadside bomb on the Iraqi battlefield - explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) - is now being found in Afghanistan.

Lethal armor piercing bombs that can slice through U.S. humvees are also an Iranian specialty.

More worrying still: U.S. intelligence believes Iran is supplying surface to air missiles to the Taliban - the very same weapon the U.S. supplied to the Afghan resistance to bring down the Russians.

"We are losing this war every day," said Bruce Reidel, with Brookings.

Reidel led the Obama Administration's strategy review of Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier this year. But he's also worried about Iran.

"It's clear that U.S.-Iranian relations now are going to go into an increasingly difficult period," Reidel said. "If I was sitting in Teheran, I'd be looking for the place where you could hurt the Americans the most and that's Obama's war right next door in Afghanistan."

Iran knows the U.S. is already stretched to the limit in southern and eastern Afghanistan, so opening a new front in the west can only make it even more difficult for the U.S. to succeed.

"It is more violent already but it could get a lot more violent yet," Reidel said. "In a sense Iran has fired a few warning shots across our bow."

That growing Iranian threat means there is even more at stake for the U.S. in Afghanistan than ever before.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/07/eveningnews/main5370148.shtml




Provost

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States 1924-1929

US Military does not know **** about anything.. and only a fool would believe such garbage. Taliban hates Iran more then the US

US is faking news against another country again. The Iraq story was not very old.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

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"deeds, not words"

indeed those news are garbage, dunno why but because of a strange reason, sunni fanatics hate shias and other muslim sects (infact they hate everyone) more than anyone else. So, even they can think they have a common enemy, there is no possiblity for practice.


For Turks, the homeland isn't Turkey, nor yet Turkistan. Their country is a vast, eternal land: Turan!
-Ziya Gokalp-

Course they are coopering against the commum enemy;only a fool or a blinded brain or eyes person dont know or see it.
Elementary my dear Watson.

And yes...The Iraq story was not very old.True and US got the mass destruition weaponman the died ex-pres. Saddam(RIP).Its not a very old story,we all know about these.

Taken with a grain of salt.




_________________________________________________
"Made from 100% Quality Korean Genes"

it's ok people don't panic, America will stop those evil bastards!

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Freedom is never free.

taliban has nothing to do with sunni muslims, they are fanatic wahabbi scum...

we sunni muslims don't hate the shya's, they are our muslim brothers.

--
http://www.ahmetreyizyilmaz.com/

I have been reading enough messages for the last year and a half regarding IRGC and Taliban cooperation to make me sick.

Take it with a grain of salt if you want, but its true......Tehran supports the Taliban, including tactical training within Iran by the GC and weapons transfers.

**** Iran.

You know in the 80's when the US itself was providing major financial and arms assistance to the taliban much of the weapons it supplied to them were from 3rd party manufacturers so they couldn't be traced back to the US in the event they fell in soviet hands. Now lets say iran is secretly helping out the taliban, why would it send its own weapons to them with a big fat made in iran sticker so they can be traced back to it when theyre found by americans, it would defeat the whole purpose of the help being covert in the first place wouldn't it?

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And all of this controversy circles me
And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me
So I point one back at 'em
But not the index or the pinky or the ring or the thumb
It's the one you put up when you don't give a ****
When you won't just put up with the bull**** they pull
Cause they full of **** too

The IRGC supports the Taliban mostly by hosting various training schools.

As far as weapons, its a lot of in-house IED's and explosives, as well as ammunition (varies from small arms / MG ammo up to RPG rounds). They do also give away AK-47 and PK clones, some mortars and RPGs, dunno if their Iranian produced or bought by the IRGC from a third party.

Iran does the same thing with anti-coalition Shia militants in Iraq.

You know I can claim alot of things aswell (I have a 22" penis and my testicles touch my knees) but without evidence they don't mean anything other than that's what I believe.

----------------------------------------
And all of this controversy circles me
And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me
So I point one back at 'em
But not the index or the pinky or the ring or the thumb
It's the one you put up when you don't give a ****
When you won't just put up with the bull**** they pull
Cause they full of **** too

"my testicles touch my knees"

Is that supposed to be good thing?

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Sometimes it's annoying but you know, i got big testicles so what are you gonna do.

----------------------------------------
And all of this controversy circles me
And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me
So I point one back at 'em
But not the index or the pinky or the ring or the thumb
It's the one you put up when you don't give a ****
When you won't just put up with the bull**** they pull
Cause they full of **** too

My understanding is that when it reaches your knee, it basically means it's too hot, way too hot in our pants...Men's nuts cool by going away from our bodies..

-------------------------------------------------

you're wrong okay. Theyre just really really big.

----------------------------------------
And all of this controversy circles me
And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me
So I point one back at 'em
But not the index or the pinky or the ring or the thumb
It's the one you put up when you don't give a ****
When you won't just put up with the bull**** they pull
Cause they full of **** too

soo? US supported taliban too, US actually created taliban. "they are brave and proud warriors", didn't you watch rambo in afghanistan?!?!

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An excellent read on the US historical support for terrorism can be read in a very good book called Good Muslim bad Muslim.

Read it before you accuse other of supporting such groups....

Wasn't Iran about to invade Afghanistan in the late 1990s to kick some taliban a$$es after the executions of iranian diplomats in Herat??



FREE EASTERN TURKISTAN

This wouldn't happen to be from the same intelligence agency that said Saddam had an active WMD program would it?

Also, a friend of mine in Afghanistan said one time they had found a weapons cache that had mint, brand new Chinese weapons and ammunition.

This doesn't mean the Chinese are supporting the Taliban. It simply means the weapons bought on the black market had come from China, most likely from criminal theft and smuggling.

Much how the FARC in Columbia are using American M-16's... It doesn't mean the US is arming the FARC, it simply means there are a lot of American made weapons on the black market.

I'm sure this is the case as well. Under paid soldiers in the Iranian military taking bribes by crime lords to sell them weapons, which they sell to the Taliban.

It happens to a lot of countries. Even Russia. I have an Afghani friend who came to Canada during the Soviet occupation. He told me stories about how they used to trade hash for soviet AK's with Russian soldiers.

An excellent read on the US historical support for terrorism can be read in a very good book called Good Muslim bad Muslim.

That title is a lie.

There is no such thing as Good Muslim. It doesn't exist.

US is getting really desperate with this isnt it...

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Pakistan Airforce: The largest distributor of Indian airforce parts in Asia



Pathankot Strike
8 F-86Fs of No 19 Squadron led by Squadron Leader Sajjad Haider struck Pathankot airfield. With carefully positioned dives and selecting each individual aircraft in their protected pens for their strafing attacks, the strike elements completed a textbook operation against Pathankot. Wing Commander M G Tawab, flying one of the two Sabres as tied escorts overhead, counted 14 wrecks burning on the airfield. Among the aircraft destroyed on the ground were nearly all of the IAFs Soviet-supplied Mig-21s till then received, none of which were seen again during the War.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFHlzP69n9c

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what desperate? they're just building a case

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Freedom is never free.

first the americans say the taliban are at war with iran now they say the are in cooperation what ever america says you idiots followed it what if america said i fu[ked your mums would you belive that too and for an example i mean

You have to build an excuse for attacking Iran...

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"Las Malvinas fueron, son y ser¨¢n Argentinas"