Hazara Nation

Iran has been sending arms and money across the border to insurgents and local officials in Afghanistan, despite a formal commitment to support the Kabul government, a senior U.S. diplomat said. He offered no evidence, however.

"Iran is interfering in a variety of ways, not as violently as in Iraq," Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia, told a May 6 news conference here. "There have been several shipments of weapons."

Boucher offered no evidence to support his statements. When asked for proof, he said, "Read the press." !!!!!!

Press reports last year quoted NATO military officials saying they had intercepted roadside bombs and weapons, which were alleged to have been of Iranian origin.

Iranian officials have denied sending weapons across the common border.

A spokesman for the French chief of staff said French troops had, to his knowledge, no found evidence of such shipment.

Boucher said he had spoken to Afghan officials who had received thousands of dollars as "presents" from alleged Iranian sources, money which they had handed over to the Afghan treasury. Some Afghan officials had not declared the money, he said.

"I don't know the logic" behind these moves, he said.

French analysts found it plausible that Iran was supporting the Taliban, but asked whether there was proof of Iranian arms shipments.

"One could imagine that," said senior research fellow Jean-François Daguzan of think tank Fondation de Récherche Stratégique. "You have to prove it, though." !!!

Iran has close ties to Afghanistan's Hazara ethnic minority, who speak Dari, which is close to the Persian language.

Boucher noted that Tehran is a signatory to the Bonn process, an international agreement to help re-establish an Afghani government after the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban regime.

He said a focus on local governance and coordination of military, civil and development tools were the best means to stabilize Afghanistan. All efforts were now attempts to catch up with the needs of economic stabilization. In 2008, U.S. policy goals are to operate at the local and district level of government, to deliver better health care, education and economic benefits. A second emphasis was to coordinate military, civil and development actions of the international community, he said.

Boucher said France's plan to send 700 more soldiers to eastern Afghanistan was "a very important contribution," saying, "This is a manoeuvre battalion, an organized fighting force," which was going into a difficult area.