The top NATO commander in Afghanistan alleged Thursday that the Iranian military was involved in a shipment of sophisticated explosive devices intercepted by his troops in western Afghanistan last month. U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill, the commander of NATO’s 40,000-strong International Security Assistance Force, said the convoy intercepted on Sept. 5 contained “a number of advanced technology improvised explosive devices.” “This weapons convoy clearly, geographically, originated in Iran,” McNeill told reporters in Kabul. “It is difficult for me to conceive that this convoy could have originated in Iran and come to Afghanistan, without at least the knowledge of the Iranian military,” he said, without providing details of the evidence underlying the accusation.
But there is some good news, we’re killing a lot of bad guys:
Afghanistan is going through its most violent year since the ouster of the Taliban regime in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. More than 5,200 people – mostly militants – have died this year as a result of fighting, according to an Associated Press count based on official figures.
Keep in mind the AP was happy to repeat Hezbollah’s claims last year that Israeli attacks has killed “mostly civilians.” If they are saying that 5,200 people were killed, “mostly militants,” one starts to wonder just how many of those were militants–maybe 95 percent? I can’t find a good number of civilians killed, but iCasualties has the Coalition toll at 192 for this year (92 of those Americans), about a quarter of whom died from non-hostile fire.
