US strike kills Iranian-backed Taliban commander in western Afghanistan
The US military killed a senior Taliban commander with links to Iran’s Qods Forces during an airstrike in western Afghanistan… The US military said Mustafa had connections to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force, the external special operations division that is tasked with supporting the Khomeinist Islamist revolution.
US kills militant said linked to Iran’s Quds Force
The U.S. military on Wednesday said an airstrike in western Afghanistan killed a militant commander with reported links to Iran’s elite military Quds Force. An Afghan official said fighting elsewhere killed 30 Taliban… A U.S. military spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, said that the military was not implying that Mustafa had links with Iran’s government, but that individual militants in Afghanistan may have links with individual militants in Iran.
“We’re not implying with this release that Iran the state is supporting the Taliban,” Sidenstricker said. “Our intelligence suggests that Mustafa has relations with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Quds Force.”
One version seems to leave the reader with somewhat less certainty about the matter, doesn’t it? It’s interesting to explore the allegations that there might be elements within Iran who might support portions of the insurgency in Afghanistan. As Iran watchers have observed, there is often precious little aside from assertions that the link exists, with nothing concrete any official is willing to say publicly.
What a delicious Catch-22: the U.S. government might have all this evidence that Iran is “backing” the Taliban… but won’t actually tell anyone what it is. It’s too sensitive to explain, but not too sensitive to allege. Right.
What I love about exploring Iran’s connections to terrorism (which is undisputed, given their involvement in Lebanon, Israel, and the widespread presence of Iranian intelligence agents in Iraq) is that, while there is copious evidence for Iranian involvement in those movements, there is almost none about its ties to the Taliban. Sure, there are “Iranian-marked” weapons found amongst insurgent caches… but then again, you can find American weapons in insurgent caches as well. That doesn’t mean we’re supporting them. As for a direct, operational link? Roggio explains:
Qods Force has secretly support Taliban elements and is a known backer of Ismail Khan, the Minister of Water and Energy and a prominent commander of Jamiat-i Islami.
Khan is known to have sheltered in Iran and receives financial and military aid from the Qods Force. According to a [an intelligence report], Khan had “total freedom” while openly living at a hotel in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Qods force provided for Khan’s security while he “met daily with many unidentified individuals.”
Oh whoops—let’s replace “Ismail Khan,” a pro-western Tajik military commander who also has extensive ties to the Iranian government, with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar the insurgent leader, and then we’ll have what Roggio actually wrote. The simple truth of the matter is: it would be crazy, and highly unexpected, if Iran did not have any ties or activities with the major personalities of Afghanistan: as a neighbor that has been affected in a profoundly negative way by Afghanistan’s three decades of war, it is in their interest to maintain as many connections (and therefore influence) with as many Afghan leaders as they can.
What remains evidence-free, however, is that Iran has any sort of direct or formal ties with Mullah Omar and the Taliban. Given that barely a decade ago, they were at each others’ throats after Omar’s fighters murdered nine Iranian diplomats and attempted genocide against the Hazara, there has to be more than mere assertion or circumstance to really make a claim like that stick. And so far, beyond a few anonymous officials whispering things here and there, there isn’t anything.
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I’m sure Iran also gives tennis shoes to the shadow army of al-Qaeda, allowing the keen analyst to identify them.
Why would anyone try to sell guns in Afghanistan? It’s not like there are any buyers in that oasis of calm. Seriously, if I’m a Quds Force guy with connections to smuggling networks, I’ll go ahead and get a piece of that action.
You do know that Hekmatyar lived in Iran from 1997-2003, right? Do you really think guys like Hek come and go in Iran without IRGC knowledge/support. And yes, that politically biased CIFAS [Spanish military intelligence] is just sliming Hek, that’s their specialty!
Do you think EFPs just fall off the shelf in Iran? You do realize a Taliban commander and a weapons smuggler admitted that Qods supplies these.
The same arguments about Iranian involvement in Iraq were made until it just because far to difficult to ignore. The more things change….
You do know that the US has undertaken negotiations directly with “Hek,” right?
Do you think that Qods is a unified organization with no squeeky wheels? Please,.
Taliban-affliliated groups drive Humvees around FATA. Do you think Humvees just fall off the shelf in American factories? No, they were stolen in Khyber.
Also, Reagan invited Hekmatyar to the White House.
Bill, my point about Hekmatyar is that everyone in Afghanistan, good and bad, deals with Iran. The U.S. hesitated in supporting Massoud in the late 90s because of his ties to Iran. A year later, we were dumping millions of dollars on his tanzim… while Iran was actively collaborating with SOCOM to clear the Taliban out of Farah, Nimroz, and Herat.
So when I urge skepticism of naked assertions that the Iranian government is “supporting the Taliban”—especially when spokesmen make it a point to say they’re not saying that—it is not without reason, and it doesn’t require casting aspersion on any other intelligence service.
I love reading about the Af-pak war, with its flashbacks of the salad days in the Iraq War. Same stories, same lack of evidence.
When insurgents in Iraq or Af-Pak get MANPADS we’ll know they have serious foreign government support (either money or weapons.
Until then we’ll just see this vague stuff.
(1) Strong indications that everybody talks to everybody, rational behavior in wars with many non-State actors.
(2) Much ink will be spilled on stories of the form X tells Americans that Y gets Iranian support (so we should not trust Y, and help X). Quality intel people can sort this out to some degree, but public sources are useless. Even the US government, for whom the primary target of info ops is the American people.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 06/11/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
so what if ole’ hekkie lived in iran for a while? half of afghanistan’s literate population did at one point or another…
ircg knowledge of his whereabouts is one thing, but support for his operations is quite another. do not conflate the two. in 2003 there were significant efforts on karzai’s part to get him into government – and it’s not like bush was on speaking terms with the iranians, and he hadn’t been hekmatyar hadn’t been messing with them, so why would they possibly go out of their way to arrest him?
Mr Roggio,
“Do you really think guys like Hek come and go in Iran without IRGC knowledge/support.”
Yes, because the entire region has porous borders and has since the Silk Road paths were first trod over 2,000 years ago.
“Do you think EFPs just fall off the shelf in Iran? You do realize a Taliban commander and a weapons smuggler admitted that Qods supplies these.”
Link for that second sentence? But yeah, they fall off shelves all over the world. Belfast, Columbia, Iraq. After saying for months only Iran could make EFPs, the US military went and found EFP factories inside Iraq back in 2007.
Regards, Steve
Nevermind. I found the “Taliban Claim Weapons Supplied By Iran” story myself. It’s from the notoriously unreliable Daily Telegraph. The source is a “commander, who would not be named.” *Snort!*
Regards, Steve
When I first read the article I thought how conveniently one could substitute Iraq for Afghanistan and Hek for Sadr. It makes me wonder if this is part of the new Pentagon control the narrative plan.
When it comes to propaganda-stories about Iran being the enemy of the west, one country with a stated policy of planting stories leaps to mind… Just saying.
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