By Safa Haeri America looks set to fan the flames of a new conflict in Central Asia by provoking divided, politically insecure Iranian clerics on the one hand, and the ultra-orthodox Taliban who now rule over Kabul on the other. Take a lame-duck American president looking to divert public opinion from an on-going sex scandal, two neighbouring Muslim nations ruled by clerics that hate each other, Iran, and now Pakistan, struggling for the status of regional power in both the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, add the fact that US and Western arms manufacturers are desperately seeking to replenish their order books, and the perfect recipe for a bloody confrontation. Quoting unidentified "intelligence sources", the Washington Post reported Saturday that the Pentagon and the White House have been warned that Iran is poised to send thousands of troops and dozens of attack aircraft into Afghanistan and that an incursion is "imminent". In response, and in a clear warning to Iran, Washington demanded all neighbours to "respect" Afghanistan's borders and to refrain from any intervention in this country. "We have several time called on all neighbours of Afghanistan to withhold from engaging in [military] operations that might intensify and enlarge the scope of the present conflict in that country," said a State Department Spokesman. Replying immediately, Tehran said it "reserved the right [of] self-defence" to safeguard the lives of its missing diplomats. In Tehran, the Washington Post article is viewed by a senior independent analyst as a "typical example" of the US provoking antagonistic, politically under-developed Third World countries into war. "Unfortunately," he added, "there are elements in Iran, both among the clerics and the Revolutionary Guards, more than happy to respond to such provocation." Quoting senior defence and administration officials, the Washington Post said that in the past week, under the guise of a military exercise, code-named Ashoura III, Iran has sent 35,000 troops, 25 attack aircraft, 80 T-72 tanks, two SA-6 mobile missile batteries, 90 heavy artillery pieces and 60 armoured vehicles to its north-eastern border with Afghanistan. Any fighting that breaks out between Iran and Afghanistan, US officials told the newspaper, is likely to be long and bloody because "neither side possesses a definitive military advantage". "They [the Iranians] are close to panic-stricken," a senior official told the paper. "They are probably trying to intimidate the Taliban and there certainly is a possibility they will cross the border." But a Tehran newspaper reported that Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, Iran's leader and supreme commander of the armed forces, has ruled out any military intervention in Afghanistan. Iran and the Taliban, who now control more than 90 per cent of Afghanistan thanks mostly to Pakistani military support, Saudi money and US intelligence, came to loggerheads after the Taliban captured the Northern Afghan city of Mazar Al-Sherif. In the process 10 Iranian diplomats and one journalist, present at the Iranian consulate in the city, disappeared. Iran insists that the diplomats and the journalist are alive, that they are in the hands of the Taliban and wants them back "immediately and unconditionally." At the outset, the Taliban insisted that they had no clue to the whereabouts of the missing Iranians, though recently Taliban sources have hinted for the first time that the Iranian diplomats and journalist may have been killed. Unimpressed by such revelations, a senior Iranian official bluntly warned that if the Iranians are not returned Iran could well end up by attacking Afghanistan. "The Ashoura manoeuvres are not unrelated to the disappearance of the Iranian diplomats and their aim is very clear. Should the Taliban refuse to hand over [the diplomats] unconditionally, Iranian forces will be ready for military operations," said Mahmoud Mohammadi, senior spokesman at the Iranian Foreign Ministry. The Ashoura III manoeuvres, which began on 1 September, for the first time combine the land and air forces of the Revolutionary Guards. So far, more than 70,000 Sepahis (Revolutionary Guards) and basiji (volunteers), backed by heavy tanks, artillery, rockets and aircraft are taking part in the exercises, covering 600 square kilometres near the Afghan border. Amid threat and counter-threat traded by Tehran and Kabul, Taliban leader Mollah Mohamed Omar told the BBC Pashto language service that if the missing Iranians are not in the hands of the opposition, then they must be considered as having been killed though he insisted that should this be the case, it was done without the knowledge of either himself or any senior military officer. As both Iran and the Taliban requested UN mediation over the case of the missing diplomats, independent observers drew parallels between Tehran's current position and the case of four Iranians -- two diplomats, a journalist and their driver -- killed in Beirut by the Lebanese Phalange 14 years ago. Tehran still insists that they are alive and probably in the hands of the Israelis. But should Iran become convinced that its diplomats are dead, hinted an Iranian source, it may feel itself bound to take military action against the Taliban in "something like the US missile attack on bin Laden's camps." Meanwhile the Taliban continue to send more troops and weapons to its border with Iran, and Iranian forces remain in place though the manoeuvres were originally planned for three days.
