Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay on Tuesday identified Iran as the origin of weapons used by rebels against the international coalition in Afghanistan.
"We have asked the Iranians to deal with the problem because it is very hard to cut the supply lines when you have, in another country, people who are providing the arms for use against Canadian forces and others" in the 39-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, he said.
Speaking during a visit to the military base at Kandahar broadcast on Radio-Canada television, MacKay said Canada was particularly concerned about improvised explosive devices from Iran, which have fallen into the hands of Taliban rebel forces.
Most of the 73 Canadian soldiers who have died in Afghanistan since 2002 were killed by such explosives.
MacKay, accompanied by Canadian Chief of Defense Staff General Rick Hillier, made a surprise visit to Kandahar on Tuesday to celebrate the Christmas holiday with some of the 2,500 Canadian troops in the country.
Relations between Ottawa and Tehran, in a poor state ever since the death in 2003 of Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra while in detention in Iran, worsened with the expulsion of the Canadian ambassador to Tehran early this month.
Shortly after MacKay's press conference, rockets were fired toward the military base but caused no damage, Radio-Canada reported.
Two rockets were fired toward the base during MacKay's last visit to Afghanistan on Nov. 6.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
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