Iran acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that nine soldiers kidnapped near the Pakistani border last month were being held by Sunni militants and accused archfoe the United States of sponsoring them. "The kidnappers of the nine Iranian border guards ... belong to the groups influenced by the ideology of the Taliban," Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said, referring to the hardline Sunni militia which ruled Afghanistan before the US-led invasion of 2001. "America cannot directly confront Iran and instead uses such groups against it," the minister told the official IRNA news agency.
| Yes, it was me. I confess: I have them in my basement. |
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