DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.K./AFGHANISTAN/IRAN: THE TALIBAN, IN AFGHANISTAN, IS BEING SUPPLIED WITH WEAPONS BY IRAN

Iran possibly supplying the Taliban with weapons and ammunition

LONDON: Iran is supplying the Taliban with weapons and ammunition for use against coalition troops in Afghanistan, a newspaper said on Tuesday, citing a senior British army source.

The Daily Telegraph said that officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were supplying hundreds of weapons, including SA7 Strella surface-to-air missiles, plastic explosives, anti-tank mines, AK47 assault rifles, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. “There are reports that lead us to believe a number of agencies, possibly including Iranian organisations, are significantly supporting the Taliban,” the source said.

It is not thought the Taliban militia are well trained in how to use the weaponry, said the newspaper, whose report was in line with what a diplomatic source told reporters recently. British authorities are understood to be investigating the interception of convoys of new Revolutionary Guards weapons, one in late April and one in early May, and consider it a worrying development. According to the Telegraph, munitions were thought to come either directly from Iran or smuggled in through dealers and were mostly taken on trucks or donkeys to the Sangin valley in the restive southern Helmand province where they are used against British troops. American Special Forces working alongside the Afghan army discovered them, the newspaper added.

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