NATO captures ‘Iranian arms smuggler’ in Afghanistan

LONDON - A member of the elite al-Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, wanted for his involvement in smuggling of arms, was captured by NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The man was detained last Saturday in Zehri district of southern Kandahar province, which is known as the birthplace of the Taliban movement, the BBC reported.

The man was a “key Taliban weapons facilitator” involved in smuggling arms from Iran to Afghanistan, NATO was quoted as having said in a statement.

The man was detained “for facilitating the movement of weapons between Iran and Kandahar through (southern) Nimruz province,” a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

“The now-detained man was considered a Kandahar-based weapons facilitator with direct ties to other Taliban leaders in the province,” the ISAF statement said.

A senior Afghan security official in Kandahar said coalition forces had been monitoring the man for some time.

“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,” the official told BBC. “It was the international forces who arrested him. They had been listening to him for some time and monitoring his electronic communications.”