Herat. More than 20 armed men crossed the border from Iran into Afghanistan and entered an Afghan town, an Afghan police commander said in the first such blunt claim by a high-ranking Afghan official, cited by DPA.
Colonel Rahmatullah Safi - police commander in the three western provinces of Farah, Badghis and Herat - said that according to intelligence information, the group of armed militants crossed the border Monday in Farah's Anardara district. "Two pickup trucks with over 20 armed people riding in them crossed the border from Iran to Afghanistan," Safi told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in his Border Police headquarters, 15 kilometres outside Herat city.
He said that according to the intelligence information, the men were heading toward the Zirkoh area in Farah province, which has been the site of escalating militant activity in recent months.
This comes at a time when the United States and its allies have put pressure on banks and oil companies to pull out of oil and gas projects in Iran. A US Treasury Department official has recently said, "What we're trying to do is make it difficult for Iran to use the global financial system." |