Iran says US playing game in Afghanistan

At a press conference in the Afghan capital, Ahmadinejad was asked to respond to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who earlier in the week accused Tehran of “playing a double game” by trying to have a good relationship with the Afghan government while undermining US and Nato efforts by providing some support to the Taliban. Tehran has said it supports the Afghan government and denies allegations that it helps the Taliban. “I believe that they themselves,” who are now fighting militants in Afghanistan, “are playing a double game,” he said. “They themselves created terrorists and now they’re saying that they are fighting terrorists.”

Ahmadinejad appeared at a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, but it was the Iranian leader who did most of the talking.

He said terrorists are not best fought on the battlefield, but through the use of intelligence, which does not result in the death of troops or civilians. Ahmadinejad criticised foreign forces and how much money the US and other nations were spending on troops, money that he said would have been better spent on irrigation.

Car bomb kills 5

A car bomb killed five people in Afghanistan on Wednesday. The attack killed Afghan security personnel at a security post in Paktika, the eastern province which has become a flashpoint for a Taliban insurgency.