The Guardian reports that Western intelligence agencies have discovered a new source of jihadists in Afghanistan, and it comes as a bit of a surprise. The Sunni-based Taliban have apparently received a boost in personnel from the Shi'ites in Iran:

Knock-kneed with fear, the young prisoner perched on the edge of his chair in the windowless Afghan intelligence office. Eyes bloodshot and hands trembling, he blurted out his story.

Abdullah had reached the end of a pitifully short career as a Taliban fighter. He had been arrested hours earlier, just 10 days after signing up to the insurgency. But the 25-year-old with a soft face and a neat beard had something unusual that aroused the intelligence agents' curiosity.

"I come from Iran," he said in a quavering voice, wringing his hands nervously. "They told me the Americans had invaded Afghanistan and I should go and fight jihad. But I was cheated. Now I am very sorry that I ever left." ...

Military and diplomatic sources said they had received numerous reports of Iranians meeting tribal elders in Taliban-influenced areas, bringing offers of military or more often financial support for the fight against foreign forces. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the meetings took place in Helmand province, where more than 3,000 British troops are based, and neighbouring Nimroz, a lawless desert province bordering eastern Iran.

Although the reports are hard to confirm due to security fears, officials say the direction of flow is unmistakable. "There's definitely an Iranian hand," insisted one western official, who said the phenomenon was being quietly monitored by western intelligence and militaries. A top-ranking Afghan military official said he had received similar information. "The Iranians were offering money and weapons. This is a very sensitive issue," he said.

This seems very strange indeed. Afghanistan, as the Guardian points out, is one of Iran's critical trading partners. They cooperate on drug interdiction and they have normal diplomatic relations. Even more to the point, the Taliban are radical Sunnis, the exact kind of Islamists the Iranians have opposed for a long time. Why would they suddenly want to bolster the Taliban and give the Sunnis back power on the Iranian doorstep?

It gets back to the tribal issues that Eric Margolis noted yesterday. Western intelligence believes that the jihadis come from the minority Baluchis in Iran, which have actively operated against the Iranian mullahcracy. They want to encourage the drug trade, and they want to encourage Sunni jihad. The Baluchis comprise a small area in Afghanistan, but they comprise almost all of western Pakistan, and it appears that their tribal area would reach significantly into Iran.

The captured terrorist believed himself to be an agent of the Iranian government. He attended a training camp in Iran, he told interrogators, and the main point seemed to be training Shi'ites to fight for a Shi'ite theocracy in Iraq. Most of his classmates went to Baghdad. Abdullah, though, went to Afghanistan, and he claims that the camp was run by Abdullah Shafi -- a former leader of Ansar al-Islam, the al-Qaeda group that should therefore be fighting for Sunni/Wahhabi domination.

If this information is on the level, it looks like the Islamists have either become very confused or less inclined to reject each other than in the past. It still doesn't look like an alliance, but perhaps Iran is willing to use whatever tools are at hand to disrupt the American effort to remake the region through democracy. After all, the only constant between the two are that Iraq and Afghanistan have democratically-elected governments, and Iran fears the effect that more secular democracies will have on the region.

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