Factors standing behind Iranian support to the Taliban

Iranian support to the Taliban in Afghanistan is testament to the pragmatism enjoyed by the mullahs' regime in the Islamic Republic.

Conflicts between the two sides brought them in the past to the verge of war when the Sunni movement ruled Afghanistan at the end of the 1990s.

Nonetheless, Iranian support to the Taliban and continual coordination with the Afghan movement invites attention to the common interests between the two sides.

Tehran is an important supplier of arms to the Taliban.

Plan against the US

Afghan police seized recently Iranian arms in the possession of Taliban fighters. This development gives credence to reports about the presence of Iranian support to the Taliban. This support is part of an Iranian plan undermine NATO and US troops in Afghanistan.

It is important to note that Iran backs the Taliban, even as it does not want it to return to Afghanistan's rule. It only uses the Afghan movement as a pressure card in negotiations the US, ones aiming at forcing Washington to lift the economic sanctions it imposes on Iran.

The interesting thing is that Iran considers the Taliban a terrorist movement. It always condemns the attacks it stages in different parts of Afghanistan.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry reminded everybody late last year that the Taliban had killed Iranian diplomats in 1998.

Tehran, it said, had not forgotten this incident, even as it does not plan to avenge the killing of these diplomats.