Some doubt U.S. claims Iran arming Taliban

WASHINGTON, June 14 (UPI) -- Some analysts question U.S. reports that Iran is arming the Taliban, saying Tehran has other allies there and the weapons are available on the open market.

Wednesday in Paris, U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns made the most definitive statement yet by a senior official that Iran was supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan with weapons including small arms and shaped charges, which make roadside bombs effective even against armored vehicles.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this," Burns said on CNN television. He also ruled out the possibility that the supplies might be coming from rogue states or freelance elements in Tehran.

"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."

But some analysts remain skeptical about the reports, which have previously emerged sourced to unnamed U.S. or coalition officials in Afghanistan.

Prof. Barnett Rubin of New York University, one of the leading U.S. experts on Afghanistan, told Harper's Magazine No Comment blog that any assistance the Taliban might be getting from the Iranians pales into insignificance beside the support they receive from Pakistan -- a major U.S. ally.

"True, some intelligence states that (the) Iranians may have supplied (the) Taliban with low-level, (and a) small amount of training. On the other hand, the Taliban openly train, recruit, rest, and raise funds in Pakistan ... and the media seems to be essentially oblivious to that."

"The Iranians say you can buy any weapons in the Pakistani tribal territories, including theirs," continued Rubin.

Rubin and others also point out that the Taliban ruthlessly suppressed Afghan Shiites, who were co-religionists of the Iranians, when they were in power -- and that Iran was one of the first foreign countries to support the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. That support that continues today, even as the alliance is now part of President Hamid Karzai's internationally backed government in Kabul.

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Shaun Waterman, UPI Homeland and National Security Editor