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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkdood" data-source="post: 7562705" data-attributes="member: 92282">Afghan insurgents trained in IranAfghan insurgents  are being trained inside Iran and given weapons  to fight security forces, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces said on  Sunday, joining a rising drumbeat of criticism of Iran's role in the  country.General Stanley McChrystal said coalition  forces were working to stop Iran from giving  material help to the Taliban who have stepped up the campaign to force  foreign forces out of Afghanistan in a nine-year conflict. "The training that we have seen occurs  inside Iran with  fighters moving inside Iran," he said at a news conference in response  to a question on Iran's influence. "The weapons that we have received  come from Iran into Afghanistan."The  United States, battling a Taliban insurgency at its worst, has  frequently accused Iran of providing some  assistance to insurgents in Afghanistan, although Washington says it has  not been nearly as important a factor as in Iraq, Iran's other  neighbor, where U.S. troops are waging war.In  March, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen  said there had been a significant shipment of Iranian arms to  fighters in the southern province of Kandahar.U.S. forces are preparing for an offensive  in Kandahar, the spiritual capital of the Taliban, this summer in what  is seen a turning point in the war to force the insurgents to the  negotiating table for a settlement of the conflict.Iran denies supporting  militant groups opposed to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government,  and says it has a stake in the security of the neighboring state.Tehran's economic influence in Afghanistan  has grown rapidly in recent years, especially in the West, where  cross-border trade is brisk. A dialect of Iran's Farsi language  is one of two state languages in Afghanistan, and Iran hosted millions  of Afghan refugees during decades of conflict.McChrystal said Iran, as a neighbor,  had natural interests in Afghanistan and to a certain extent the  assistance and interaction it provided was healthy. "There is however  clear evidence of Iranian activity, in some cases of providing weapons  and training to the Taliban that is inappropriate," he said.Iran backed the  Northern Alliance in the war against the Sunni Muslim Taliban in the  1990s, but security analysts said Tehran's intelligence services could  be helping elements in the Taliban as a tool against the United States.   <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64T0U920100530" target="_blank">Reuters</a></blockquote>

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