Pakistan backing Afghan attacks, says UK officer

Bomb attacks on US and Nato forces in Afghanistan are being funded and planned from Iran and Pakistan, a senior British officer has said.

Major General Gordon Messenger, who is the spokesman for Britain's mission in Afghanistan said Taliban insurgents were altering their tactics to launch more long-range sniper
attacks on Nato forces.

He told newspersons here that British military intelligence has found "evidence" that some of the IED attacks are being supported from outside Afghanistan.

"We are looking beyond Afghanistan in terms of the provision of some of the more sophisticated components and the provision of finance," he said.

"There is evidence that something is coming in from Iran, something is coming in from Pakistan".

Last month, a London School of Economics report said that Pakistan's ISI intelligence service gives extensive backing to the Afghan insurgency.

However, Maj Gen Messenger said there was no evidence of foreign "institutional" support for IED attacks in Afghanistan in the same way that parts of the Iranian regime backed bomb attacks on international forces in Iraq, the Daily Telegraph reported today.