Rumsfeld - Iran refuge for Taliban

WASHINGTON -- Some Taliban and al-Qaida members who escaped Afghan-istan have "found refuge" in Iran, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday.

Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials also charged that Iran was creating instability inside Afghan-istan by funneling arms to various factions within the country.

"There isn't any doubt in my mind that the porous border between Iran and Afghan-istan has been used for al-Qaida and Taliban to move into Iran and find refuge," Rumsfeld said.

Iran has helped in creating the interim Afghan government and raising money to rebuild its war-shattered neighbor, Secretary of State Colin Powell said. But President Bush's grouping Iran with North Korea and Iraq as part of an "axis of evil" supporting terrorism was justified, U.S. officials said.

"This regime deserved to be on the list and this regime knows it deserved to be on the list," Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, said on CNN's "Late Edition." She said Iran was seeking chemical and biological weapons, improving its long-range missiles and pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities.

Iranian officials have denounced Bush's comments and denied giving any help to the Taliban or Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network. Iran's government had strongly opposed the Taliban regime before its eventual collapse last year.

"We hated each other and we never had any commonalties," the head of Iran's powerful Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said Friday.

Part of the reason was religious. Iran's regime is Shiite Muslim, while the Taliban imposed a radical version of the rival Sunni branch of Islam.

Iran also has jostled for influence in Afghanistan for years with Pakistan and Russia, the other major powers in the region. Pakistan, whose population is mainly Sunni Muslim, had backed the Taliban until the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Since then, Pakistan has strongly supported the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, and Rumsfeld on Sunday chided Iran for not acting more like Pakistan.