Iranians Train Taliban to Use Roadside Bombs

[tekisui]

Source: Times Online

TALIBAN commanders have revealed that hundreds of insurgents have been trained in Iran to kill Nato forces in Afghanistan. The commanders said they had learnt to mount complex ambushes and lay improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been responsible for most of the deaths of British troops in Helmand province.

The accounts of two commanders, in interviews with The Sunday Times, are the first descriptions of training of the Taliban in Iran. According to the commanders, Iranian officials paid them to attend three-month courses during the winter. They were smuggled across the border to the city of Zahidan, in southeast Iran, an hour’s drive from training camps in the desert.

Instructors in plain clothes provided daily exercises in live firing. The first month was devoted largely to teaching the Taliban how to attack convoys and how to escape before Nato forces could respond.During their second month they were shown how to plant IEDs in sequence so that the rescuers of soldiers wounded in one blast would be caught in further explosions.The third month was spent on storming bases and checkpoints. A hilltop fort was among the locations used for practice by a Taliban platoon.

Local mediators persuaded the commanders to travel to Kabul to tell their stories. They were interviewed on separate occasions on the edge of the city.

Western officials troubled by growing Iranian support for the Taliban describe the accounts as credible. A military crackdown in Pakistan is thought to have encouraged Taliban leaders to look to Iran for more help.

more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article7069779.ece

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. The Taliban and Iran are mortal enemies.

I simply find this story a stretch.

[howard112211]

2. That would mean that Shia and Sunni muslims are starting to get along.

Which overall ironically would be a positive developement for the Middle East.

[bigtree]

3. not very believable

It's like the Saddam and al-Qaeda nonsense.

[FarCenter]

4. They may have received training from Sunni Balochi insurgents in the Iranian Southeast

See http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61M0ZY20100223 for example.

The Sunnis are supported by the CIA, but that doesn't mean that they don't also support the Taliban.

[tekisui]

5. I hope this isn't a foundation for a march to war.

[sixmile]

6. The BS meter is about to explode!

Pure propaganda. Planted story.

[readmoreoften]

7. Level 5, code red bullshit.

[Swamp Rat]

8. 'The USA trains the USSR to use Atomic Bombs to kill Canadians' would be just as believable.

Where's John Bolton these days?