Iran & USA allies in Afghanistan:stranger than reality

[milnews.ca]

....according to American int sources quoted by Michael Smith of the Sunday Times (UK):

IRAN is supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan with surface-to-air missiles capable of destroying a helicopter, according to American intelligence sources. They believe the Taliban wants to use the SA-14 Gremlins missiles to launch a “spectacular” attack against coalition forces in Helmand, where insurgents claim to be gaining the upper hand. Although British and American helicopters operating in southern Afghanistan are equipped with defensive systems to deflect an attempted strike, the SA-14 can evade such counter-measures. It was a shoulder-held SA-14 supplied by Iran that was used by Iraqi insurgents to shoot down a Lynx helicopter over Basra in May 2006 ....

A few more open sources on Taliban MANPADs here.

(Mods - couldn't find another thread to tack this onto searching for "Taliban, MANPAD", so feel free to shift if there's a better place for it. Thanks!)

[120mm]

Well, I do hope that the SA-14s perform as poorly as the 107mm rockets that are all the rage with the TB.



The obviously poor frag effects lead to something akin to Shakespeare's "Noise, signifying nothing."

[davidbfpo]

A colleague spotted this BBC Newsnight item, from September 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/7621427.stm

Amidst the many subjects is the report than Iran (private and state actors) are supplying an effective mine, the 'Dragon' to the Taliban and that weapons flow south from the Northern Alliance areas.

Apologies if the link refuses to work outside the UK, as Canadians have found.

davidbfpo