Taliban Imperiling Region, Iranian Leader Warns
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Monday that Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are stirring up a regional crisis and urged Muslim countries to intercede.
Hours later, the independent Afghan Islamic Press reported that the fundamentalist Taliban had called for negotiations with Iran under U.N. laws.
Tensions between the two neighbors have grown since the Taliban admitted Thursday to killing nine people last month out of 10 Iranian diplomats and an Iranian journalist missing in Afghanistan.
Iran has massed tens of thousands of troops on its border with Afghanistan amid widespread calls for a military strike against the Taliban, whose forces killed the Iranians after capturing the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Aug. 8.
“I have so far prevented a blazing fire from starting in this region, which will not be put out easily,” Khamenei said in a statement read on Iranian television.
The bodies of seven of the slain Iranians were flown to Tehran late Monday aboard a military plane. The official Islamic Republic News Agency said an Iranian team was able to identify only seven bodies and return them home.
The Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic movement, controls about 90% of Afghanistan.
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