Mohammad Habibzada
VOA News
May 17, 2018
WASHINGTON — Afghanistan’s western Farah province has been the scene of fierce fighting between the Taliban and the Afghan government in recent days. Afghan officials blame Iran for the unrest.
Gen. Fazl Ahmad Shirzad, provincial police chief of western Farah province, told reporters on Wednesday that Iran is supporting the Taliban in the province.
“Iran is directly funding and equipping the Taliban in Farah, and the country is involved in the recent unrest in the province,” Shirzad said. “Farah is very important for Iran, and the country sees its interests in continued unrest in the province,” he added.
Gen. Gul Nabi Ahmadzai, the former Afghan border police chief, told VOA that Iran’s support for the Taliban is not a secret.
“Iran is directly involved, and its Revolutionary Guard commanders are leading the firefight in Farah,” Ahmadzai said.
“An unholy coalition of our neighbors — Russia, Pakistan and Iran — has been formed in the region, which sees its interest in our weakness. They want to manage our security and government, and they cannot bear U.S. support for Afghanistan, and they don’t want America’s presence in Afghanistan,” Ahmadzai added.
All three countries deny charges that they want to destabilize Afghanistan.
Drought
Some experts charge that Iran is ratcheting up its support for the Taliban to disrupt developmental projects in Afghanistan, including water dams, which if completed would slow down the flow of water to Iran.
“Iran is very concerned about water dams that are being built in Afghanistan. Iran benefits from Afghanistan’s insecurity,” Khalil Parsa, a Washington-based Afghanistan expert, told VOA.
Eastern parts of Iran, neighboring Afghanistan’s western parts, have been reportedly faced with severe drought in recent years, and dozens of villages have turned to ghost towns, with residents moving to other parts of the country.
Iran has expressed concerns over water dams in western Herat, Farah and southwestern Nimruz provinces in Afghanistan, which share a border with the country.
“We cannot remain indifferent to something that undermines our environment. The construction of numerous dams in Afghanistan — including the Kajaki dam [Helmand province], Kamal Khan dam [Nimruz province], Salma dam [Herat province] and others in the north and south of Afghanistan — has affected our Khurasan and Sistan and Baluchestan provinces,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told a regional conference last year.
Earlier this month, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, warned of reciprocity against Afghanistan over the issue of water rights should Afghanistan continue to disregard Iran’s demands. He did not elaborate on what “reciprocity” entails.
“At this point in time, we are left with one option, and that’s reciprocity, which means we would have to take harder measures in parts of Afghanistan,” news agency ISNA quoted Zarif as saying.
“We expect that before the Islamic Republic resorts to reciprocity, that the Afghan government regard our legal and legitimate demands,” he said.
Fatemeh Aman, a U.S- based Afghanistan-Iran affairs analyst, downplayed the role of water in shaping Taliban and Iran relations and said Iran will not directly help the insurgents in order to block the construction of water dams.
“I do not think that Iranians are up to do such an insane and senseless act at this time when they need allies more than ever,” he said. “The bonds between Iran and Afghanistan are deep, and despite many ups and downs in their relationship, both countries have managed to maintain close ties.”
The Afghan government expressed concern over ties between the Taliban and Iran but has yet to comment on Iran’s possible role in recent Taliban attacks on Farah.
U.S. Defense Department spokesperson Dana White said Thursday that Iran’s involvement in the recent developments in Farah could not be ruled out.
“I don’t think you can ever rule out how much Iran interferes throughout this region,” White said in response to a question on whether Iran had anything to do with the Farah province situation.
“Iran remains the most destabilizing factor in the Middle East.”
Last year, Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the U.S.-led NATO Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, said there are relations between Iran and the Taliban.
“We see some evidence of that in the western part of the country. We have “reports of that that come from locals in the western part of the country. In Farah province, in particular, we have received many reports of Iranian-backed Taliban fighting in Farah with some advanced equipment. So, we’re watching this very closely,” Nicholson said at a Pentagon briefing.
Contingency plan
Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, views the relationship between the Taliban and Iran more of a contingency plan.
“They are creating relationships that they hope will make the Taliban safe if it takes over from the Afghan government. It is a contingency plan,” Cordesman said. “Another source of speculation is that Iran is supporting the Taliban as a counter-balance to the growing role of ISIS inside Afghanistan.”
VOA’s Rikar Hussein and Mehdi Jedinia contributed to this report.
Related
NO !
***
**
*
IRAN
HAS
NOTHING
TO DO
WITH THE NEW ROUNDS OF IMPOSED DEADLY
DEVELOPMENTS IN FARAH PROVINCE.
.
THE
“ANGLO-US” WAR CRIMINAL, (RATS),
ARE WELL-AWARE OF IT.
.
THEY ARE JUST PLAYING
“DIRTY AND DEADLY”
POLITICS IN AN ORDER TO ENGAGE AND DRAG IN IRANIANS FOR THEIR MILITARY FAILED GAMES, (QUAGMIRES), INSIDE AFGHANISTAN.
.
THE INNOCENT REGULAR
FOLKS OF AFGHANISTAN
ARE PAYING DEARLY
FOR THE
EXECUTION OF SUCH KINDS OF
COWARD
MILITARY GAMES,
–
************
************
************
BUT REGARDLESS; I
BLAME BOTH;!
IRANNIAN AND TURKISH LEADING POLITICAL AUTHORITIES FOR
THE GRIM PLIGHT OF THE PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN AND ALL OF THE OTHER WAR-IMPOSED ISLAMIC COUNTRIES.
******************
•••••••••••••••••••••••••
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
==============================
.
HERE ARE
THE REASONS:
AGAIN;
.
I PUT THE BLAME
SQUARELY ON THE SHOULDERS OF
THE LEADING
POLITICAL AUTHORITIES OF
*IRAN AND *TURKEY
FOR THE COWARD WESTERN GENOCIDAL ATTACKS IN IRAQ, SYRIA AND AFGHANISTAN; NOW FOR ALMOST TEO DECADES.
==•••••••••••
===•••••••••••••
======••••••••••••••••
.
DEAR
BROTHERS AND SISTERS !
……….
HEAR ARE THE REASONS :
*****
****
***
**
*
BOTH; Iran and Turkey are the most, (in fact the only), militarily powerful Islamic countries in the world- they do, in fact, have also major bargaining power against the Anglo/US aggressive military moves; but unfortunately, the key problem is that somehow these two militarily powerful ISLAMIC countries, with almost combined two hundred millions of populations, are petheticallly neutralized through various silly distracting WESTERN MITARY GAMES that totally neutralizing their influence to bring peace to the OPPRESSED people of those victimized countries.
Those two leading Islamic countries are not wise enough to engage themselves in proper dialogue in an order to creat a common ground and front for protecting the lives of the Muslims on those weaker and /or weakened Islamic countries; especially in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Now; the main simple question that would come up is
why the the two major countries have not able to opened up civilized dialogues with each other ?????
THE ANGLO/US containment policy towards Turkey and Iran is crystal clear and whole-heatedly accepted.
.
In Afghanistan; Turkey’s standing military military, as a NATO member, have has been getting certain financial and military benefits from the invaders, all along since the grand invasion of 2001 and the consequent occupation of Afghanistan- their generals are getting ,direct and indirect, free tours of Afghanistan and get exuberant salaries and gifts just by being onboard with Western alliance- same way; they have been using Iranians by creating radical Shi’a Sunni artificial rifts and other indirect iinventives.
Again; the RADICAL SHIA/SUNNI DOGMA, (as a part of military strategy), has been imposed by the western war criminals on Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan in an order to neutralize peace efforts and the combined positive inputs of the unity of regular good Muslims against the invaders; their stooges and their exploiting allies.
================================================================================================
The weird part that is clearly seen is that I have never heard or read about any information to indicate that those two big direct and indirect involved Islamic parties in the deadly conflicts of all of (Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria) would have logically thought of initiating any truelly meaningful mutual dialogue and talks to confront and resolve those issues that have been imposed by the criminals Western military and plagued the whole region through the evil works of elite Western planners; exploiters and empire builders on expense of innocent regular folks of those thre countries- incidentally; their strategy has been resonating similar deadly attitude towards Yemen; and African and other Islamic countries as well.
The effective containment’s of Iran and Turkey comes in many variety of tactical indirect and direct moves; all in an order to execute western military games; criminal srategied and numerous varieties of heinous crimes on regular folks of victimized Islamic countries.
•••
••
.•
The big question still remains to be answered whether why those two powerful Islamic countries are swayed by silly incentive give by international war criminals and why those well-established Middle Eastern Islamic countries don’t work it out with each other to some how confront the bullying and arrogant Anglo/US war criminals and help restore peace and dignity to Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria- and in fact, to all the humiliated people of
the Islamic countries and all other Muslims who are residing outside to war-imposed domains ??????????
THE FUNNT PART IS THAT, EVEN THOUGH, THE
CURRENT
DECADES-LONG RADICAL SHIA/SUNNI PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN CREATED AND ENGORCED BY THE WESTERN ALLIANCE; BUT, IT IS WHOLLE-HEATEDLY ACCEPTED BY SOME CIRLES IN ISLAMIC COUNTRIES.
================•••
I AM %100 SURE IT COULD BE RESOLVED TO GREATEST EXTENT IN ITS CIRE, IF TURKEY AND IRAN SET ASIDE THEIR FOOLISH PRIDE AND TACKLE THE REAL PROBLEMS OF AGGRESIONS AND HUMILIATIONS TOWARDS MUSLIMS OF AFGHANISTAN; IRAQ; SYRIA; OTHER ISLAMIC AND NON-ISLAMIC COUNTRIES.
.
THE SMALL THEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES WOULD BE DEFINATELY BE RESOLVED IF THE TRUE ISLAMIC LEADERS OF THOSE TWO GREAT COUNTRIES CARE TO BRING RESPECT TO ALL AS ONE- TO THE REGION AND, IN FACT, TO THE WHOLE WORLD- NOW, REALLY THE CORE RELIGIOUS IDEALS ARE THE SAME.
=========
=====
==
*JUST SOME EXTRS EFFORTS NEEDED
TO RESOLVE THE MINUTE
RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCE
FOR THE SAKE OF THE RESTORATION OF A
HONORABLE
PEACE FOR ALL !
;
Please, forgive me for
rush writing
and
typing errors !
*IRAN AND TURKEY
MUST WORK TOGETHER TO HELP
BRING PEACE IN THE RDGION- THEIR LACK OF INTETEST IS
ENCOURAGING THE BULLYING WESYERN POWERS ARE COMMITTING HEINOUS CRIMES ON INNOCENT COMMON FOLKS ACROSS AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ AND SYRIA,
They must work together
to unite all
Muslims.:
*IRAN
AND
*TURKEY
.
MUST WORK TOGATHER
TO UNITE ALL MUSLIMS AS ONE- OTHERWISE, THE INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMINALS WILL ENSLAVR ALL
MUSLIMS
ECONOMICALLY.
The ANGLO/US WAR CRIMINSLS ARE CREATING
SHIA/SUNNI
CONFLICTS
AND
HATREDS,
IN AN ORDER TO ACHIEVE
THAT
EVIL DEDIGN.
HERE IS THE
UTGENT NEED:
=====•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
.
*If Iran and Turkey
will not open up sincere
dialogue between each other to help diffuse and eradicate
this imposed
SHIA/SUNNI
extremist
hatred
and sickness
through their stooges
and
secret agents;
then, it will definately turn
into extreme
disaster for all
of
Islamic countries.
*********************
CHECK AROUND !
************************
*EVERY ONE CAN EASILY
SEE THE SIGNS
OF THE
EVIL
PLOTS-
IT IS SPPLIED
ALL OVER !
This is just an attempt to pin one Muslim against another. Iran is a friend of Afghanistan.
Well; I never noticed any sign of sincere good-well gesture from Iran Ian authorities since the “grand invasion”
of Afghanistan and, in fact, the
Iranian government have cooperated with the puppet Kabul regime and as a result of that the Anglo/US war mongers granted Iran huge concessions, on several occasions inside Afghanistan and on several international economic deals which included removal of past embargoes and return of some confiscated Iranian assets that were connected to Iranian Revolution of 1979 after the removal of the Shah.- So; all of a sudden all those new scenoreas were beginning to develop with Iran and so ironically, coincided with the grand invasion of Afghanistan.
+++++++++++
+++++
+++
One of the main reason that Anglo/US war criminals were confronting and engaging Iran, ((all through the years that they were in Afghanistan after their invasion, (2001)). was to keep Iran at bay; as it was clearly connected eith their illegal grand invasion of Afghanistan. THOSE PHONY NUCLEAR BARGSINGS WITH IRAN HAD NO REAL substance in its contents – THE TANTRUMS AND WEIRD DIPLOMACY AGAINST IRAN IN CONNECTION TO NUCLEAR ENRICHMENTS AND PREVENTION WAS JUST A BIGBHOAX- IT WAS TOTALLY DESIGNED TO REMIND IRANISN AUTHORITIES TO BEHAVE THEmSELVES THE WAY THE INVADERS WANTED THEM TO DO- JUST TO MAKE SURE THEYB DID NOT INTERFERE AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ IMPROPERLY.
Iran could have had caused great problem for the invaders and occupiers in many ways; but, due to those direct and indirect political and economical incentives and combination to certain kinds of available pressures, they were able to get the Iranian onboard partially; albeit, mostly to the minimum degree and indirectly- with no real active role like the Pakistani puppets were forced to play slavishly.
==============
**************
•••••••
They were getting Iranian heavily involved through their third affiliated parties who had already long-term relations in Iran; they also got some Iranians businesses involved in Herat and some other parts of the country in an order to please Iranian business leaders and political authorities directly and/or indirectly- so, they were getting all big time incentives and encouragements.
AND IT
LOOKED LIKE THEY LOVED IT.
*
Also; the Anglo/US war criminsls were involving the professional and non-professional Iranians; especially from the religious minority groups of Jews, Bahi’s and Christian exile in Europe, United States, Central Asia, Iran itself; and many other destination in the world, (who spoke Farsi), to get actively involved and take parts in their created war imposed bonanzas for profits and to help the invaders all across Afghanistan- alongbwith some cheering songs from Tajikistani and Samarkandi “rather cute singers” to make them feel home all around the killing field of Afghanistan.
**************
**************
**************
IF YOU CAll ALL THAT FRIENDLY GESTURES; THEN, I WOULD REAlly QUESTION THAT STABILITY IN SOUNDNESS OF YOUR STATE OF MIND.
*************
*************
All the stooges and camp-followers had one thing in mind- to exploit off the grim situation of the locals), that meant against, more than %95 population of Afghanistan).
===============================
THEY WERE ALL
GATHERED THERE IN AFGHANISTAN, TO
ENRICH THEMSELVES- GOT IT NOW ???????
***********
YOU HAVE
BRAINS !
TO
CHECK
IT
ALL OUT !
>>>>>>
with almost
%100
accuracy.