Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country’s top intelligence agency, has detained a government employee for allegedly spying on behalf of state-sponsor of terror Iran, a move that appears to confirm that the pro-Taliban Islamic Republic has been expanding its covert operations in the U.S.-backed nation.
NDS officials have accused the alleged mole “of transferring classified government documents to Iran’s intelligence services,” reveals Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
The suspected double agent “had worked for nearly two years as a provincial expert on municipal affairs in [western Afghanistan’s] Herat Province, which borders Iran,” adds RFE/FL.
Afghan intelligence officers had reportedly been monitoring the alleged spy — Assadollah Reza’i — for several months.
Reza’i had also held “top” government positions in Afghanistan’s western province of Farah, which also sits along the country’s border with Iran.
In August 2017, the New York Times (NYT) noted that Iran’s influence is growing in Afghanistan, where mutual disdain towards the United States and allegedly the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has pulled together two unlikely bedfellows: the Shiite Islamic Republic and the Sunni Taliban.
Anti-government elements in Afghanistan, namely the Afghan Taliban and its alleged rival ISIS, are known to even target religious leaders simply for “their perceived support of the [Kabul] government,” reported the United Nations late last year.
The U.S. military has dismissed claims that the relationship between the Afghan Taliban and Iran is aimed at “advancing the cause of stability in the region” by combating the growing ISIS branch in South Asia together.
As early as last month, the Pentagon reported that Iran continues to lend support to Taliban jihadists who are fighting against the U.S.-assisted Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), which includes police and military units.
Citing Afghan officials, the Times warned in August 2017 that “Iran has sent [to Afghanistan] squads of assassins, secretly nurtured spies and infiltrated police ranks and government departments, especially in western [Afghan] provinces.”
Now, RFE/RL reports that Iran may have indeed infiltrated Kabul through a government employee in Afghanistan’s western province of Herat.
“Jilani Farhad, the spokesman for Herat’s governor, told RFE/RL on January 15 that the man, identified as Assadollah Reza’i, was detained more than 10 days ago by agents of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and sent to Kabul for further investigation,” notes RFE/RL.
U.S President Donald Trump’s administration has been pressuring Pakistan to stop harboring the Afghan Taliban, recently suspending nearly $1 billion in security aid to Islamabad for refusing to take decisive action against the jihadist group.
Pakistan officials have reportedly admitted that they at least hold some influence over the Afghan Taliban, which is killing and maiming American troops as well as their Afghan and NATO allies.
Late last year, a high-ranking Taliban militant declared that the terrorist group can always change benefactors if Pakistan decides to abide by the U.S. demands to stop backing his fellow jihadists.
“Many Taliban want to leave Pakistan for Iran. They don’t trust Pakistan anymore,” Mullah Abdul Saeed, the commander, told the Guardian.
Some military commanders affiliated with the Iranian government are already fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, NYT learned from Afghan intelligence officials.
“Iran has conducted an intensifying covert intervention, much of which is only now coming to light,” added the Times. “It is providing local Taliban insurgents with weapons, money, and training. It has offered Taliban commanders sanctuary and fuel for their trucks. It has padded Taliban ranks by recruiting among Afghan Sunni refugees in Iran, according to Afghan and Western officials.”
“The regional politics have changed,” Mohammed Arif Shah Jehan, a former senior Afghan intelligence official who now serves as the governor of Farah province located adjacent to Iran, told the New York Times. “The strongest Taliban here are Iranian Taliban.”
The trove of CIA-released documents linked to the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden provided evidence of the link between Iran and al-Qaeda, one of the Taliban’s most prominent allies.
According to the latest independent and U.S. government assessments, the Taliban controls or contests about 45 percent of Afghanistan despite the estimated $877 billion America has invested in the war-ravaged nation since 9/11.
“About 40 percent of [the Afghan opium and heroin] does go out through Pakistan, about 30 percent through Iran, about 30 percent through the north,” U.S. Gen. John Nicholson, the top commander of American and NATO troops in Afghanistan, noted recently.
The illicit opium and heroin business is the prime source of funding for the Taliban in Afghanistan, the world’s primary producer of the two drugs despite the nearly $8.6 billion the United States has devoted to counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan since 2001.
Under American President Donald Trump, the U.S. military has been significantly targeting the Taliban’s economic engine — opium and heroin — responsible for nearly 60 percent of the group’s revenue, estimated at hundreds of millions annually.
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