Brit Special Forces seize Iranian made rockets from Taliban
March 10th, 2011 - 12:49 pm ICT by ANI
Kabul. Mar.10 (ANI): British Special Forces in Afghanistan have seized a cache of 48 powerful Iranian rockets in an ambush from Taliban fighters in Afghanistan
Military officials state that this is the strongest evidence of the increasing support from Iran to the Taliban, and the most powerful arms cache captured by the British Special Air Service (SAS) troops in Afghanistan to date.
Foreign Secretary William Hague slammed Iran for its ‘unacceptable’ behaviour in supplying them and said that the British ambassador has raised the matter with officials in Tehran.
He said: “It is not the behaviour of a responsible neighbor. It is at odds with Iran’s claim to the international community and to its own people that it supports stability and security in Afghanistan.”
The cache of 48 rockets was hidden in three trucks and was seized after a fierce fire fight which left several insurgents dead in the remote southern province of Nimroz, on the Iran border, last month, following an intelligence tip- off.
The 122mm rockets, which were seized with 1000 rounds of rifle ammunition and 49 rocket mortars and fuses, have twice the range and twice the blast radius of the 107mm missiles used previously by the Taliban.
The rockets, which have an 80ft blast area, were analysed last week by UK specialists.
Their ID marks had been deliberately removed but the experts found they were identical to Iranian-built rockets seized in Iraq in 2007, The Sun reports.
Nato has revealed that there have been more than 1,600 anti-Taliban operations in the last month, with 1,800 insurgents captured, 500 killed and 1,005 arms caches uncovered. (ANI)
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Tags: 122mm rockets, arms caches, blast area, blast radius, british ambassador, british special forces, fire fight, fuses, military officials, mortars, nimroz, rifle ammunition, sas troops, secretary william, southern province, taliban fighters, troops in afghanistan, uk specialists, unacceptable behaviour, william hague