Iran's 'marriage of convenience' with Taliban
Experts say reports of an Iran-backed Taliban buffer zone in Afghanistan against the Islamic State are overstated but that Iran has had links with Taliban commanders for over a decade.
![AFGHANISTAN-BLAST/ Taliban insurgents stand over three men, accused of murdering a couple during a robbery, before shooting them during their execution in Ghazni Province April 18, 2015. The Taliban announced the execution of the three men accused of murdering a couple during a robbery, saying they had been tried by an Islamic court. The killing was carried out in front of a crowd by Taliban fighters who fired at the men with AK-47s, according to a Reuters witness. Footage seen by Reuters show the men were made to sit on the](/sites/default/files/styles/article_hero_medium/public/almpics/2016/06/RTR4XU2K.jpg/RTR4XU2K.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=72OyxjTK)
Iranian authorities deny that Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour had just returned from a trip to Iran when he was killed May 21 by a US drone strike not far from the Iran-Pakistan border.
But experts on Afghanistan tell Al-Monitor that Iran has played a complicated game with the Afghan militant group for over a decade and has stepped up contacts in recent years in part to keep an even more dangerous organization — the group that calls itself the Islamic State — from expanding its territory to Iran’s east.