12:00 U.S. diplomat says NATO intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to Taliban (AP)

UH OH!!!...

Consider the source...

PARIS — The United States has "irrefutable" evidence that Iran is transferring weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan, with the knowledge of the Iranian government, and NATO has intercepted some of the shipments, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this," said Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns on CNN. "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."

Speaking separately to The Associated Press, Burns also said that NATO needs to act to stop the shipments. The Iran-Afghanistan frontier is "a very long border. But the Iranians need to know that we are there and that we're going to oppose this."

"It's a very serious question," he said, adding that Iran is in "outright violation" of relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions.


[link to www.foxnews.com]

Document: Iran Caught Red-Handed Shipping Arms to Taliban

NATO officials say they have caught Iran red-handed, shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives and advanced roadside bombs to the Taliban for use against NATO forces, in what the officials say is a dramatic escalation of Iran's proxy war against the United States and Great Britain.

"It is inconceivable that it is anyone other than the Iranian government that's doing it," said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stopped short earlier this week of blaming Iran, saying the U.S. did not have evidence "of the involvement of the Iranian government in support of the Taliban."

But an analysis by a senior coalition official, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, concludes there is clear evidence of Iran's involvement.

"This is part of a considered policy," says the analysis, "rather than the result of low-level corruption and weapons smuggling."   

Iran and the Taliban had been fierce enemies when the Taliban was in power in Afghanistan, and their apparent collaboration came as a surprise to some in the intelligence community.

"I think their goal is to make it very clear that Iran has the capability to make life worse for the United States on a variety of fronts," said Seth Jones of the Rand Institute, "even if they have to do some business with a group that has historically been their enemy." 

The coalition analysis says munitions recovered in two Iranian convoys, on April 11 and May 3, had "clear indications that they originated in Iran. Some were identical to Iranian supplied goods previously discovered in Iraq."

The April convoy was tracked from Iran into Helmand province and led a fierce firefight that destroyed one vehicle, according to the official analysis. A second vehicle was reportedly found to contain small arms ammunition, mortar rounds and more than 650 pounds of C4 demolition charges.

A second convoy of two vehicles was spotted on May 3 and led to the capture of five occupants and the seizure of RPG-7mm rockets and more than 1,000 pounds of C4, the analysis says.

Also among the munitions are components for the lethal EFPs, or explosive formed projectiles, the roadside bombs that U.S. officials say Iran has provided to Iraqi insurgents with deadly results.

"These clearly have the hallmarks of the Iranian Revolution Guards' Quds force," said Jones.

The coalition diplomatic message says the demolition charges "contained the same fake U.S. markings found on explosives recovered from insurgents operating in the Baghdad area."

"We believe these intercepted munitions are part of a much bigger flow of support from Iran to the Taliban," the message says.

The Taliban receives larger supplies of weapons through profits from opium dealing, officials say, but the Iranian presence could be significant.

"It means the insurgency in Afghanistan is likely to be prolonged," said Jones. "It would be a much more potent force."

[link to blogs.abcnews.com]

Made in USA, right?

Rigghtt, jus like you had "irrefutable" evidence about WMD's in iraq?

i suppose that why they havent acted last tine it led to Iraq war thats still ging now its the truth this time but its hard to act.The boy who cried wolf.

I am a high ranking CIA Agent in the middle east. I have seen the cargo containers which house the said weapons.

They are clearly marked:

"PROPERTY OF IRAN
FOR USE BY THE TALIBAN ONLY
NOT TO BE SOLD SEPERATELY"

Attn: Osama Bin Laden

haaretz, debka, sorcha faal are all non_credible sources

Gawd, Cheney's little whores are working at break-neck speed to get this war rolling.

As Reagan used to say, trust, but verify. Let's see those weapons.

Why bother?


Spin up the bombers!

[link to www.cnn.com]

Also on CNN.

why do we let these evil scum get away with these lies?

The US supplied weapons to the Taliban in the Ninities. Why then not bomb Washington DC?

bomb isreal, that would be much better

ha
i luv u Redneck

"The Taliban receives larger supplies of weapons through profits from opium dealing, officials say, but the Iranian presence could be significant."

Strange how when the Taliban were fully in power in Afganistan there WAS NO OPIUM production. Since the USA and NATO have gone into Afganistan Opium production has returned to high levels.

Gates most likely has it right, the US has no evidence that Iran is behind these shipments.

Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed
[link to www.truthout.org]

Is Turkey bombing the Kurds in Iraq? If so, this is a might fine coincidink... keep an eye on what Turkey is doing.

Check news link www.rawstory.com


Robert Gates is denying this in order to set the record straight. The information is being attributed to the Cheney camp, and Gates and the military have denied the false information.

b/c they give us mcdonalds, gap, old navy, walmart, kmart, home depot, lowes, burger king, and all the other great things that we enjoy!

Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran
By Trita Parsi

WASHINGTON - US Senator Joseph Lieberman's call for cross-border bombing raids into Iran appears to be the culmination of a two-week campaign by proponents of war to put the military option center-stage in the US debate over Iran once more.

The immediate effect of reigniting the let's-bomb-Iran discussions is the undercutting of the recently initiated US-Iran talks over Iraq, which in turn will cause the military confrontation with Iran to be viewed in a new light.

Lieberman out-hawked the administration of President George W Bush on the television news show Face the Nation this past Sunday by calling for "aggressive military action against the Iranians", including "a strike over the border into Iran". Repeating accusations - by now all but abandoned by the Bush administration - of Iranian complicity in the killing of US soldiers in Iraq, the Connecticut senator's comments caused a storm on Monday. Suddenly, the military option against Iran was once more at the center of the United States' Iran debate.

[link to www.atimes.com]

A grand bargain Russia might just refuse
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

We should offer Russia a grand bargain: we delay our plans for missile defense in Eastern Europe, while the Russians agree to back stronger sanctions against Iran." These are the words of Joseph Nye, a respected political scientist at Harvard University and a former top US official known for his works on "soft power". He is letting us know that soft power almost always has elements of hard power in the wings, to paraphrase noted historian Howard Zinn.

[link to www.atimes.com]

Remember when Russia was in Afganistan?

The USA giving Afgans all kinds of weapons, letting Bin Lad lead the charge for the CIA,

AHHHHHHH, the good old days

Agreed. They are all tel aviv based propaganda rectums.

and yet this story reports differently about Gates' report. [link to apnews.myway.com]

Oh, and US doesnt supply other countries with weapons.