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Source: https://jcpa.org/article/iran-and-the-taliban-bitter-enemies-or-potential-partners/
Iran and the Taliban: Bitter Enemies or Potential Partners
(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Amb. Dore Gold - At the end of the 1990s, Shiite Iran and the Sunni Taliban nearly went to war. However, the Iranians also pursued a strategy of supplying Taliban units with arms and cash as well as training Taliban fighters, using the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Iran later deployed the Afghan Fatemiyoun Division in Syria, which became the largest external militia involved in the fighting there. Both Iran and the Taliban were committed to seeing U.S. power in Afghanistan weakened. But now that the Americans are gone, does there remain a basis for Iranian-Afghan cooperation? Will Iran seek to add the demographic weight of Shiite communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan to its cause? The writer, former Director-General of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israeli Ambassador to the UN, is President of the Jerusalem Center.