The Taliban has deployed hundreds of suicide bombers to Afghanistan's border with Iran amid an intensifying dispute over water access, Bloomberg reported.
Thousands of Taliban troops, including hundreds trained to blow themselves up, were sent to the border since May, a source told the outlet. Iran and the Taliban have moved toward a conflict over water from Afghanistan's Helmand River, which Iran relies on.
Afghanistan in 1973 agreed to provide a certain amount of water from the river to Iran, but since the Taliban took over Afghanistan after the Biden administration withdrew in 2021, Iran claims the new regime has reduced the water supply.
Amid soaring temperatures in the Middle East this summer, Iran has become increasingly upset over the Taliban government's failure to uphold the agreement. A border skirmish in May left at least two Iranian troops and one Taliban fighter dead.
The potential conflict comes as the Biden administration continues to fund the Taliban government, which took over in August 2021 after a chaotic U.S. withdrawal that left billions of dollars of military equipment behind.
More than $2.35 billion in taxpayer dollars have been sent by the administration to Afghanistan since the Taliban retook control.
Parents of U.S. service members killed during the evacuation testified this week, calling on President Joe Biden to take responsibility for the deaths of 13 Americans killed in an ISIS attack.
The father of one of the slain service members called on Biden to "be a grown-ass man" and admit his role in the disaster.
"Do what our son did, be a grown-ass man—admit to your mistakes," Darin Hoover, whose son Darin T. Hoover died in a terrorist suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, said during a congressional forum in California this week.