Iran faces conflicting motives in its not-so-secret support for insurgents in Afghanistan, says Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of US Forces-Afghanistan. Iran’s involvement is pretty clear, Petraeus said last week during a discussion in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Journal and Newseum. Iran’s revolutionary guards are providing the insurgents with training, equipment, and funding, he said. He noted that authorities recently stopped a shipment of unmarked—but Iranian-made—rockets just inside the Afghan border. Theses rockets had “double the range, double the payload, and double the burst radius” of anything the insurgents have used before, he said. Despite this support, Shiite Iran has “no desire” to see a “Sunni extremist” government like the Taliban regain power in Afghanistan, said Petraeus. Afghanistan’s “illegal narcotics industry has enslaved a lot of young Iranians,” and that problem would get immeasurably worse if the Afghan government collapsed, he said during the March 18 event.
Roth Talks Transition Amid Administration Change, COVID
Feb. 26, 2021
Acting Air Force Secretary John P. Roth is shepherding the Department of the Air Force through the first months of the year as the nation awaits President Joe Biden’s pick for a permanent Secretary. Handing off the Air Force and Space Force to a new administration, including several officials in…