Inside View of IR’s Support for Taliban (Enemy of My Enemy)

Conventional wisdom may hold that Iran has little in common with the Taliban, its onetime ideological competitor across the border in Afghanistan. Some speculate that the coalition forces back in 2001 did the Mullahs in Iran an indirect favor by toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Taliban (sunni muslims) vs. Mullahs in Iran (Shi’ite muslims) were sworn enemies. I even heard from a couple of people in Iran that prior to 2001, the Taliban beheaded 7 IR officials near the border of Iran & Afghanistan.

The most logical explanation that I have, so far, heard regarding IR’s current support for the Taliban is: “The enemy of my enemy is NOT exactly my friend, but…..”. Similarly, it is said that IR has been actively supporting Al Qaeda operatives and sheltering a few key ones in Iran.

Many, by now must have seen or read the U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who held a news conference in Paris on Tuesday, say The United States has “irrefutable” evidence that Iran is transferring weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

However, here I want to highlight an extract from a previous article in Asia Times - June 8, 2007. I find this particular article more informative & gives one a more “inside Afghanistan & Iran” views.

ISLAM QALA, Iran-Afghanistan border - When Iran announced in February that it was undertaking a thorough regularization of aliens on its soil, ears in the West pricked up, but not much was read into it.

However, the subsequent expulsion of thousands of Afghan refugees indicates the twofold motive behind the move. First, Iran wanted to weaken Sunni-led insurgents in its bordering areas, and second, it believed that the return of the refugees would fuel the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan.

The second calculation, compounded by a political miscalculation on the part of the Afghan government, has already borne fruit, in the process providing the United States with another area on which it needs to consult Tehran.

On April 23, Iran sent back 4,000 undocumented Afghans to Zaranj, Nimroz province, followed the next day by the same number. All of them had been living in the Iranian Sunni-dominated Zabol-Zahedan region of Sistan-Balochistan province and had originally hailed from Nimroz and Farah provinces. An estimated 1 million Afghan refugees live in Iran.

In fact, observers claim that Tehran wants to clear all people, local or foreign, from the Sunni-dominated area to minimize the chances of insurgents securing safe sanctuaries in the remote regions of Zahedan and Zabol (both in Iran).

Zahedan has traditionally been the base of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK - People’s Mujahideen), which has conducted terror acts in Iran. And recently an organization called Jundallah emerged from the area to carry out terrorist activities against Iranian security forces.

Jundallah is a hardline Sunni Islamist group drawn from the Baloch population of Iran, as well as Balochs from Pakistan (Balochistan province) and Afghanistan (Farah and Nimroz provinces).

“The most alarming thing is the gradual increase in the activities of the Taliban in Farah and Nimroz and the return of the Afghan refugees. They are poor and needy and naturally will fuel the Taliban insurgency,” a senior official of an international agency told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity.

However, other factors will help make western Afghanistan a new hub of Taliban activities this year. Sayed Hussain Anwari, a Shi’ite ethnic Hazara, was installed as governor of Herat this year in the predominantly Tajik-Sunni province.

Anwari is a bitter rival of a legendary Afghan commander of the resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s, Ismail Khan, and Anwari’s appointment by Kabul was an open declaration of war against Khan and his formidable support. Khan was sacked as governor in September 2004. As a conciliatory gesture, President Hamid Karzai appointed him minister of energy (I also hear that Karzai is losing support in Afghanistan).

The consequences of sidelining the powerful Khan are being manifested in the re-emergence of the Taliban in the northwestern provinces of Herat (Shindand), Farah, Nimroz and Ghor through the facilitation of local warlords, many of them Khan supporters.