War drums continue to beat

from todays newswire :-

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking to reporters in Paris, said Iran was funding insurrections across the Middle East - and "Iran is now even transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan."

Yet elsewhere we have read :-

Defence Secretary Robert Gates told a press conference on Jun. 4, "We do not have any information about whether the government of Iran is supporting this, is behind it, or whether it's smuggling, or exactly what is behind it." Gates said that "some" of the arms in question might be going to Afghan drug smugglers.

The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil implied that the arms trafficking from Iran is being carried out by private interests. "When you say weapons being provided by Iran, that would suggest there is some more formal entity involved in getting these weapons here," he told Jim Loney of Reuters June 5. "That's not my view at all."

It is well known that Afghan drug lords who command huge amounts of money have been able to penetrate the long and porous border with ease. They have undoubtedly been involved in buying arms in Iran with their drug proceeds for both themselves and the Taliban, which protects their drug routes. Smuggling is relatively easy because of the money available for bribery of border guards.

Noted by former Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Momand in an interview on Pakistan's GEO television Apr. 19, is that the Taliban now controls areas on the Iranian border for the first time. Momand said the Taliban, which is awash in money from the heroin exports to Iran, buys small quantities of weapons in Iran and smuggles them back into Afghanistan. But the Iranian government itself is not involved in the trade in arms, Momand insisted.

Tony "The Liar"Blair, of course , added his tuppensworth to fan the flames of war
"In Afghanistan it is clear that the Taliban is receiving support, including arms from ... elements of the Iranian regime," Blair wrote in the May 31 edition of the Economist. Nothing about the weapons from Pakistan . A Nato report on the Taliban's military capability states clearly that Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI) is involved in supplying it. Blair along with Bush is too busy downplaying Pakistans nuclear missiles programme and Musharraf's attacks on democracy .

But what does the Afghanistan Prime Minister say :-

“There’s no reason that any of our neighbours should support the Taliban,” Mr Karzai said. “We don’t have any such evidence so far...”