International Herald Tribune
KABUL: Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday that Iranian weapons had begun flowing to the Taliban in Afghanistan in recent months but acknowledged that drug smugglers or other criminal networks, not the Iranian government, might be behind the shipments.
"We’re watching it very carefully," he said at a news conference with President Hamid Karzai after they met at the presidential palace here.
Karzai said there was no evidence that the Iranian government, which supports him, was arming Afghan militants. In fact, the Afghan leader was full of praise of Tehran, saying Iran and Afghanistan had "never been as friendly as they are today."
"It is in the interest of our brothers in Iran to have a stable and prosperous Afghanistan," Karzai said.
Gates said he agreed that there was no direct evidence that the Iranian government was behind the shipments, but he echoed comments made in recent weeks by top U.S. military commanders, saying that Iranian-made weapons were being smuggled into Afghanistan.
"There clearly is evidence that some weapons are coming into Afghanistan destined for the Taliban," Gates said.
The prospect of Iran, a Shiite country, directly aiding the Sunni Taliban is particularly worrying to U.S. officials, because it would demonstrate that Iran was ignoring sectarian considerations in order to undermine U.S. efforts throughout the region.
Both Karzai and Gates said they were optimistic that combat operations so far this year had significantly impaired the ability of the Taliban to carry out large scale attacks and that the Taliban’s expected spring offensive against Kandahar, the main city of southern Afghanistan, had fizzled.
Gates arrived in the Afghan capital on Sunday, expressing guarded optimism about progress in the military campaign. Though Taliban fighters appear to be using sophisticated new weaponry and have also stepped up the pace of suicide attacks, U.S. officials say they believe that NATO forces have inflicted significant losses on the Taliban.
While the pace of both NATO combat operations and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan has been slow, it remains steady, he said.
"I think actually things are slowly, cautiously headed in the right direction," Gates told reporters aboard his plane Sunday. "I’m concerned to keep it moving that way."
A total of 75 allied troops died in Afghanistan in the first five months of this year, including 38 Americans, compared with 53 allied troops in the same period a year ago, including 37 Americans. Three more allied deaths have been reported in June, including one American, according to iCasualties.org, a Web site that tracks military and civilian casualties.
U.S. military officials in Afghanistan have said they have discovered a type of armor-piercing explosive that has killed dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq but until recently had never been found inside Afghanistan. General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Singapore on Sunday that the bombs were evidence that the Taliban were "adapting and learning."