Iran Gains Ground in Afghanistan as U.S. Presence Wanes<br />Set on expanding the Taliban’s sway in Afghanistan, he was also preparing to negotiate an end to the war, playing all sides on his terms, according to both Afghan officials with close knowledge of the Taliban<br />and the former Taliban commander close to Mullah Mansour’s inner circle.<br />On his last visit, Mullah Mansour traveled to the Iranian capital, Tehran, to meet someone very important — possibly Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah<br />Ali Khamenei, said the former Taliban commander, who said he had gleaned the information from members of Mullah Mansour’s inner circle.<br />Mr. Bahrami said that We said that Afghanistan would not be landlocked anymore and we would be at Afghanistan’s disposal,<br />He was almost certainly negotiating an escalation in Iranian<br />and Russian assistance before his death, Mr. Lalai and other Afghan officials said, pointing to the increase in Iranian support for the Taliban during his leadership and since.<br />Mullah Mansour’s cultivation of Iran for weapons was done with the full knowledge of Pakistan, said the former<br />Taliban commander, who did not want to be identified since he had recently defected from the Taliban.<br />Iran is set on undermining the Afghan government and its security forces,<br />and the entire United States mission, and maintaining leverage over Afghanistan by making it weak and dependent, Afghan officials say.<br />Mr. Jehan said that Pakistan is helping the Taliban straightforwardly,<br />Timor Sharan said that Mansour was a shrewd politician and businessman and had a broader ambition to widen his appeal to other countries,
