Afghanistan Times
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AT-KABUL: Farah police chief said the Taliban corpses were transferred to Tehran and their funerals held there.
“Iran has cooperation with the Taliban. Dead bodies of the insurgents were transferred to Iran and they even held funeral for them,” said the Farah police chief, Toryallay Abdeyani.
However, Iranian ambassador to Kabul rejected transferring the bodies of the Taliban members to his country and termed this information incorrect.
Meanwhile, analysts consider Iran’s support to the Taliban harmful for Afghanistan and urged government to take serious action against Iran.
“Relations between Iran and Taliban are very deep. They have good relations since 2006,” said Hadi Quraishi, a military analyst.
In March 2011, the UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has condemned Tehran’s “completely unacceptable” behavior after British Special Forces seized a shipment of Iranian arms intended for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
UK officials say detailed technical analysis has shown that the rockets, which have twice the range of the weapons currently available to the insurgents, were supplied by Iran.
It is understood that Afghan troops and British Special Forces were involved in the seizure of the arms convoy in Nimruz Province in southern Afghanistan, which borders Iran, on February 5.
The Afghan government has repeatedly urged the regional countries including Pakistan and Iran to stop militant groups that are killing innocent civilians and fight against Afghan and foreign troops in the country. Kabul urged the neighboring countries to support Afghan government as establishing contacts with Taliban would mean supporting a parallel government in Afghanistan which would deteriorate relations and post great threat to the regional stability.
This comes as Russia and Iran’s deepening ties with the Taliban have ignited concerns of a renewed “Great Game” of proxy war in Afghanistan.
Russia has officially provided military helicopters to Afghan security forces, but simultaneously propped up the Taliban with arms, official and insurgent sources told AFP.
“We are particularly concerned about loads of Russian-made weapons recently seized from areas on the border with Tajikistan,” a senior Afghan security official said, wishing anonymity.
And this week Kabul vented fury over a summit between Russia, China and Pakistan in Moscow which agreed on a “flexible approach” to remove certain Taliban figures from sanctions lists.
Alexander Mantytskiy, Russia’s ambassador to Kabul, insists engagement with the insurgents is benign.
“We have ties with the Taliban to ensure the security of our political offices, consulates and the security of central Asia,” he told reporters this month.
Accusing Iran and Russia on support of Taliban, commander of RS in Afghanistan Gen. John Nicholson said that these two countries are trying to weaken NATO mission and have started sympathy with armed Taliban. In important American official believe that out of 98 terrorists groups identified by the US, 20 groups are operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as most of them have regional supporters as recently beside Pakistan, now Iran and Russia have also shown enthusiast in continuation of war in Afghanistan. Although the Afghan government has time and again emphasized that in war on terror and elimination of insurgency sincere regional cooperation and serious global support is required, because war on terror and extremism doesn’t only relate to Afghanistan but it’s a universal threat that should be prevented. If regional and global countries don’t help ANSF on war on terror, this threat would quickly dominate the world and then the world would fail in its prevention.
