Upside down in Afghanistan

Check out the latest twist in the Afghanistan war, as reported by The Australian. In a strategic inversion, it seems the Americans have become the foreign invaders and occupiers, and the Iranians are becoming supporters of the resistance, almost as though we were the Soviets, and the Iranians were us:

IRAN is supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan with surface-to-air missiles capable of destroying a helicopter, according to US intelligence sources.

They believe the Taliban want to use the SA-14 Gremlin missiles to launch a “spectacular” attack against coalition forces in Helmand in the southwest of the country, where insurgents claim to be gaining the upper hand.

Although coalition helicopters operating in southern Afghanistan are equipped with defensive systems to deflect an attempted strike, the SA-14 can evade such counter-measures.

It was a shoulder-held SA-14 supplied by Iran that Iraqi insurgents used to shoot down a Lynx helicopter over Basra in May 2006. Five British service personnel died in that attack, including Wing Commander John Coxen and Flight Lieutenant Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill, the first British servicewoman killed in action since World War II.

Read the whole thing.

(Hat tip: MI)