Taliban’s Tank-Killing Bombs Came From CIA, Not Iran

In support of the official U.S. assertion that Iran is arming its sworn enemy, the Taliban, the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Dennis Blair, has cited a statement by a Taliban commander last year attributing military success against NATO forces to Iranian military assistance.

But the Taliban commander’s claim is contradicted by evidence from the U.S. Defense Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban itself that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the United States to the jihadi movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The Taliban claim was cited by ODNI in written responses to questions for the record from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence following testimony by Blair before the Committee Feb. 12, 2009. The responses were released to the Federation of American Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act Jul. 30.

ODNI wrote that Iran was “covertly supplying arms to Afghan insurgents while publicly posing as supportive of the Afghan government”. As evidence of such covert Iranian arms supply, the ODNI said, “Taliban commanders have publicly credited Iranian support for their successful operations against Coalition forces”. More