Tuesday, September 08, 2009
TC-6 Anti-Tank Mine
Growing success by Taliban forces against Western coalition tanks cannot be completely attributed to Iran’s covert assistance to insurgents in Afghanistan, but also to the United States’ earlier support for Mujahedeen fighters in the 1980s, according to an investigation by journalist Gareth Porter.
In recent months American intelligence officials have tried to blame the successful attacks against U.S. and allied tanks on Tehran, claiming it has been supplying mines to the Taliban while publicly proclaiming support for the Afghan government. But American and Canadian defense sources have said the Taliban is effectively utilizing old, U.S.-supplied munitions left over from the war against the Soviet Union two decades ago
An official with the Department of Defense’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization told Porter in an email that Italian-made TC-6 anti-tank mines—which the CIA provided to Afghan rebels 30 years ago—are still commonly found in Afghanistan today, and that the Taliban is bundling them together in twos or threes to increase their explosive power and lethality.
In addition, Captain Dean Menard, a Canadian military spokesman in Kandahar, said that some of the explosives used by the Taliban against Canadian tanks “are definitely attributable to the Soviet occupation era.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
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