DAR AL ISLAM - IRAQ: IRAN/HIZ B'ALLAH/QODS FORCES MEDDLING & CREATING PROBLEMS IN IRAQ

U.S.: Iran Helped in Deadly Iraq Strike
By LEE KEATH

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iranian forces helped plan one of the most sophisticated militant assaults of the Iraq war - a January raid in which gunmen posed as an American security team and launched an attack that killed five U.S. soldiers, an American general said Monday.

U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner also accused Iran of using its Lebanese ally, the Shiite militia Hezbollah, as a "proxy" to arm Shiite militants in Iraq.

The claims were an escalation in U.S. accusations that Iran is fueling Iraq's violence, which the government in Tehran has denied. It was also the first time the U.S. military has said Hezbollah has a direct role - which, if true, would bring a dangerous new player into Iraq's conflict.

Hezbollah has denied any activities in Iraq, saying it operates only in Lebanon.

Bergner said a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative, Ali Mussa Dakdouk, was captured March 20 in southern Iraq. Dakdouk, a 24-year veteran of Hezbollah, was sent to Lebanon "as a surrogate for the Iranian Quds Force" to finance and arm militant cells to carry out attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops, he said.

The goal was to organize militants "in ways that mirrored how Hezbollah was organized in Lebanon," Bergner said. Hezbollah is one of the region's most disciplined and sophisticated militant groups, able to fight Israel's military to a near standstill in a war last summer.

The general also said that Dakdouk was a liaison between the Iranians and a breakaway Shiite group led by Qais al-Khazaali, a former spokesman for cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Bergner said al-Kazaali's group carried out the January attack against a provincial government building in Karbala and that the Iranians assisted in preparations. Al-Khazaali and his brother Ali al-Khazaali were captured with Dakdouk.

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Top Iran leaders aware of Qods Force in Iraq: U.S.
By Alister Bull and Dean YatesJul 2, 2007

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Senior Iranian leaders know about the operations of Iran's Qods Force in fomenting violence in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Monday, in some of the most direct accusations yet against Tehran over the chaos in Iraq.

The U.S. military has long accused the Qods Force of arming and training Iraqi Shi'ite militants who attack U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. Iran has repeatedly denied involvement in violence in Iraq and blames the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 for the bloodshed.

"Our intelligence reveals that senior leadership in Iran is aware of this activity," military spokesman Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner told a news conference in Baghdad.

"We also understand that senior Iraqi leaders have expressed their concerns to the Iranian government about the activities."

Iran does not officially acknowledge the existence of the Qods Force. Military experts and some exiled Iranians say it is a wing of Iran's ideologically driven Revolutionary Guards that operates abroad. They say it reports directly to Iran's top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Revolutionary Guards have a separate command structure to Iran's regular military.

Asked if it was possible that Qods Force support was being provided without the knowledge of Khamenei, Bergner said: "That would be hard to imagine."

Bergner also said the Qods Force was working with the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite militia group Hezbollah to carry out acts of violence in Iraq.

He said the United States had discovered the existence of three relatively small camps located close to Tehran where Iraqi Shi'ite militants were being trained. Between 20-60 militants were receiving training at any given time, he said.

"SHEER LIE"

Iran's Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar dismissed on Sunday as a "sheer lie" U.S. accusations that Iran was militarily intervening in Iraq and supported Iraqi militants, the official IRNA news agency reported.

He said such charges were part of a U.S.-led psychological war, IRNA said.

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Pertinent Links:

1) U.S.: Iran Helped in Deadly Iraq Strike

2) Top Iran leaders aware of Qods Force in Iraq: U.S.