Pakpak
ODI Debutant
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2009
- Runs
- 9,248
Hundreds of Taliban fighters are receiving advanced training from special forces at military academies in Iran as part of a significant escalation of support for the insurgents, Taliban and Afghan officials have told The Times.
The scale, quality and length of the training is unprecedented and marks not only a shift in the proxy conflict between the US and Iran inside Afghanistan, but also a potential change in Iran’s ability and will to affect the outcome of the Afghan war.
A political adviser to the Taliban at its Quetta Shura headquarters in Pakistan said: “The Iranian offer of training came with two demands: that we should put more focus on attacking American and Nato interests in Afghanistan, and devote more forces to attacking the Daesh [Isis].”
The adviser, a 38-year-old former bomb maker from the Sangin district in Helmand province, who cannot be named, said talks between the Taliban and Iran about sending insurgents on six-month training run by Iranian special forces began in spring this year, when President Trump was preparing to pull the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal. The Taliban selected its brightest and most able young fighters and sent them into Iran in small groups in May, where they were met by Iranian military officials and taken to their camps.
One such camp is said to be in Kermanshah, a province in western Iran; Afghan intelligence officials suggest there could be others. Taliban sources claim that up to 300 Iranian visas were made available to their cadres in each of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces earlier this year.
“My training began in Kermanshah ten days before Ramadan,” said a 25-year-old Taliban commander who goes by the alias Nawheed, and who was interviewed last month at a safe house inside Afghanistan while on leave for the Eid celebrations.
“There are between 500 and 600 of us in different stages of training there,” he said. “We learn everything from tactics, leadership skills, recruitment, to bomb making and weapons training. The instructors are all Iranian special forces, although many seem able to speak Pashto as a second language. They wear mixed uniform and treat us very well.”
Nawheed, highly educated and as familiar with the world of IT and social media as he is with bomb making and ambush tactics, is typical of the Taliban’s new generation of fighters. He has been a commander since 2015, and was chosen to speak to The Times by a high-ranking official as part of the group’s preparations for an escalation in the conflict in the event that efforts to launch peace talks fail.
His report tallies with accounts from senior Afghan military officials and intelligence officers who have warned that, with new American sanctions looming, Iran is preparing to target US interests in Afghanistan.
A deputy corps commander of the Afghan National Army said: “Every day the Taliban get stronger and the land they affect gets bigger. Yet at the same time the influence of Pakistan on the Taliban is weakening. Pakistan plays both sides and is short of trust. It is Iranian backing of the Taliban that has made the most recent impact. It is not just the weapons they give — usually Russian-made and new generation — but the training and advice. So far Iran has chosen not to really push things, but already their effect is big.”
Iran has long held a dual-track policy with Afghanistan. Historically an ally of the Kabul government and an enemy of the Taliban, in recent years the Quds Force, the special forces wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has offered ever-greater support to the Taliban — even as the group’s relationship with Pakistan, its principal ally and backer, has begun to erode.
The Kermanshah camp in western Iran is apparently a permanent military structure complete with dormitories, classrooms, food halls, rifle ranges, a gym and a mosque. Lessons begin after pre-dawn prayers and continue until late afternoon.
Nawheed said most of the Taliban recruits there were 18 to 35, and all went through a form of advanced basic training before being selected for courses in specific skills including explosives, field communications, IT, mortars, sniping, recruiting, ambush and infiltration.
“This relationship with Iran is much more recent than the one with Pakistan and it is too early to judge it,” he observed. “But we are happy with it. Once our training is finished there we will return to our units here in Afghanistan. Then, of course, it will be up to our commanders to decide who we should fight.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/talibans-best-fighters-being-trained-by-iran-bbzc68n3m
The scale, quality and length of the training is unprecedented and marks not only a shift in the proxy conflict between the US and Iran inside Afghanistan, but also a potential change in Iran’s ability and will to affect the outcome of the Afghan war.
A political adviser to the Taliban at its Quetta Shura headquarters in Pakistan said: “The Iranian offer of training came with two demands: that we should put more focus on attacking American and Nato interests in Afghanistan, and devote more forces to attacking the Daesh [Isis].”
The adviser, a 38-year-old former bomb maker from the Sangin district in Helmand province, who cannot be named, said talks between the Taliban and Iran about sending insurgents on six-month training run by Iranian special forces began in spring this year, when President Trump was preparing to pull the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal. The Taliban selected its brightest and most able young fighters and sent them into Iran in small groups in May, where they were met by Iranian military officials and taken to their camps.
One such camp is said to be in Kermanshah, a province in western Iran; Afghan intelligence officials suggest there could be others. Taliban sources claim that up to 300 Iranian visas were made available to their cadres in each of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces earlier this year.
“My training began in Kermanshah ten days before Ramadan,” said a 25-year-old Taliban commander who goes by the alias Nawheed, and who was interviewed last month at a safe house inside Afghanistan while on leave for the Eid celebrations.
“There are between 500 and 600 of us in different stages of training there,” he said. “We learn everything from tactics, leadership skills, recruitment, to bomb making and weapons training. The instructors are all Iranian special forces, although many seem able to speak Pashto as a second language. They wear mixed uniform and treat us very well.”
Nawheed, highly educated and as familiar with the world of IT and social media as he is with bomb making and ambush tactics, is typical of the Taliban’s new generation of fighters. He has been a commander since 2015, and was chosen to speak to The Times by a high-ranking official as part of the group’s preparations for an escalation in the conflict in the event that efforts to launch peace talks fail.
His report tallies with accounts from senior Afghan military officials and intelligence officers who have warned that, with new American sanctions looming, Iran is preparing to target US interests in Afghanistan.
A deputy corps commander of the Afghan National Army said: “Every day the Taliban get stronger and the land they affect gets bigger. Yet at the same time the influence of Pakistan on the Taliban is weakening. Pakistan plays both sides and is short of trust. It is Iranian backing of the Taliban that has made the most recent impact. It is not just the weapons they give — usually Russian-made and new generation — but the training and advice. So far Iran has chosen not to really push things, but already their effect is big.”
Iran has long held a dual-track policy with Afghanistan. Historically an ally of the Kabul government and an enemy of the Taliban, in recent years the Quds Force, the special forces wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has offered ever-greater support to the Taliban — even as the group’s relationship with Pakistan, its principal ally and backer, has begun to erode.
The Kermanshah camp in western Iran is apparently a permanent military structure complete with dormitories, classrooms, food halls, rifle ranges, a gym and a mosque. Lessons begin after pre-dawn prayers and continue until late afternoon.
Nawheed said most of the Taliban recruits there were 18 to 35, and all went through a form of advanced basic training before being selected for courses in specific skills including explosives, field communications, IT, mortars, sniping, recruiting, ambush and infiltration.
“This relationship with Iran is much more recent than the one with Pakistan and it is too early to judge it,” he observed. “But we are happy with it. Once our training is finished there we will return to our units here in Afghanistan. Then, of course, it will be up to our commanders to decide who we should fight.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/talibans-best-fighters-being-trained-by-iran-bbzc68n3m
