U.S. Commander: Iran Supplying Taliban

An Afghan police officer runs near a civilian vehicle which caught on fire after a car bomb exploded on a convoy of French troops in western Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 21, 2007. A bomb attack Friday against the convoy of French troops killed one soldier and injured many Afghans near the blast, while heavy fighting in southern Afghanistan killed about 75 Taliban fighters and six civilians, officials said.(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) (Rafiq Maqbool - AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A top American commander on Friday accused Iran of supplying powerful roadside bombs to militants in Afghanistan and said the U.S. would "act decisively" if the cross-border flow continues.

Heavy battles in the violence-plagued south, meanwhile, killed 75 Taliban and at least six civilians, and a suicide car bomb in the capital killed a French soldier and an Afghan bystander.

Adm. William Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Iran's Revolutionary Guard is supplying roadside bomb parts for the type of sophisticated and deadly bombs found in Iraq known as explosively formed penetrators.

"The Iranians are clearly supplying some amount of lethal aid," Fallon told The Associated Press during a trip to Afghanistan. "There is no doubt ... that agents from Iran are involved in aiding the insurgency."

Fallon said the U.S. was carefully watching the flow of weapons from Iran and said the U.S. would "act decisively" if the cross-border flow continues. His comments were not meant as a threat of military action against Iran but a suggestion that border interdiction efforts may need to be increased, Fallon's aides said later.

Iran has denied that it is supplying arms to fighters in Afghanistan.

Fallon said Iran is also providing development assistance in western Afghanistan, which he labeled as helpful, and said its activities inside its eastern neighbor are meant to ensure that Iran has a role in the region's politics.

"And I think they put a priority on causing us as much frustration as they can," he said. "I think it's all aimed at embarrassing us and one of their long-standing aims is getting us out of the region."

NATO's International Security Assistance Force has said that three shipments of weapons emanating from Iran have been intercepted in Afghanistan since April. The latest was discovered in the western province of Farah on Sept. 6.

NATO's top commander here, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, told The Washington Post in a story published Friday that the Sept. 6 shipment likely was sent into Afghanistan with the knowledge of Iran's Republican Guard and possibly the Quds Force, the country's elite covert military arm.

U.S. military leaders have long said that Iran is supplying weapons to militants in Iraq that are used against U.S. forces there.

Afghanistan has seen its heaviest fighting this year since the ouster of Taliban regime in 2001. More than 4,400 people have died in insurgency-related violence around the country, according to an Associated Press count based on official figures.