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24 December 2010
Last updated at 03:02 ET
A member of the elite al-Quds force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard has been captured in southern Afghanistan accused of arms smuggling, Nato says.
He was detained last Saturday in southern Kandahar province, the current focus of Nato offensives.
The man was a "key Taliban weapons facilitator" involved in smuggling weapons from Iran to Afghanistan, said a Nato statement.
It is not the first time Iran has been accused of backing Afghan insurgents.
The man was detained "for facilitating the movement of weapons between Iran and Kandahar through Nimruz province," a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said.
He was held in the Zheri district of Kandahar, a province known as the birthplace of the Taliban movement.
"The now-detained man was considered a Kandahar-based weapons facilitator with direct ties to other Taliban leaders in the province," the Isaf statement added.
A senior Afghan security official in Kandahar said coalition forces had been monitoring the man for some time.
He told the BBC: "Iranian intelligence officers are helping the Taliban and drug dealers in the south. We deal with it every day. This is a known fact now.
"It was the international forces who arrested him. They had been listening to him for some time and monitoring his electronic communications."
The BBC's Bilal Sarwary, in Kabul, says the Iranians are widely suspected of having supplied the Taliban in south and south-western Afghanistan with roadside bombs and other weapons.
Afghan intelligence officials privately suspect Iranian intelligence of meddling, our correspondent says, but are sensitive about making the accusation publicly.
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He was detained last Saturday in southern Kandahar province, the current focus of Nato offensives.
The man was a "key Taliban weapons facilitator" involved in smuggling weapons from Iran to Afghanistan, said a Nato statement.
It is not the first time Iran has been accused of backing Afghan insurgents.
The man was detained "for facilitating the movement of weapons between Iran and Kandahar through Nimruz province," a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said.
He was held in the Zheri district of Kandahar, a province known as the birthplace of the Taliban movement.
"The now-detained man was considered a Kandahar-based weapons facilitator with direct ties to other Taliban leaders in the province," the Isaf statement added.
A senior Afghan security official in Kandahar said coalition forces had been monitoring the man for some time.
He told the BBC: "Iranian intelligence officers are helping the Taliban and drug dealers in the south. We deal with it every day. This is a known fact now.
"It was the international forces who arrested him. They had been listening to him for some time and monitoring his electronic communications."
The BBC's Bilal Sarwary, in Kabul, says the Iranians are widely suspected of having supplied the Taliban in south and south-western Afghanistan with roadside bombs and other weapons.
Afghan intelligence officials privately suspect Iranian intelligence of meddling, our correspondent says, but are sensitive about making the accusation publicly.
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