Pentagon: Iran placing Hezbollah agents in Iraq to fight 'proxy war'
The US military on Monday accused Iranian special forces of orchestrating an attack that killed five US soldiers in Iraq and of using its Lebanese Hezbollah proxy to help train Iraqi fighters.
Brigadier General Kevin Bergner told reporters that captured militants accused of ordering the January attack on a US compound in Karbala admitted that senior leaders from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' unit supported the strike.
The accusations appear to be part of a mounting campaign by US officials to prove alleged links between Iran and the violence in Iraq.
The militants "said that senior leadership leading the Quds Force knew of and supported planning for the eventual Karbala attack that killed five coalition soldiers," Bergner said.
Previously, US commanders had accused Tehran of financing and arming the militants accused of carrying out the killings, but this was the first time they have accused Iranian officers of prior knowledge of the attack.
Tehran has always denied arming or training Iraqi militants.
In January's attack, militants disguised in US-style uniforms driving modern trucks swept past security at a local Iraqi security base and attacked a visiting group of American soldiers.
One US soldier was killed at the scene and four more seized, driven away and shot dead.
Bergner said US-led forces had also captured an Iranian-controlled Lebanese Hezbollah agent in Iraq's second city of Basra, where he was allegedly training Iraqi extremists on behalf of the Quds Force.
Ali Mussa Daqduq, also known as Hamid Mohammed Jabur al-Lami, was a senior figure in the Shiite militant group, according to Bergner.
"In 2005 he was directed by senior Lebanese Hezbollah leadership to go to Iran and work with the Quds force to train Iraqi extremists," Bergner said.
He said the Quds Force and Hezbollah were jointly operating camps near Tehran in which they trained Iraqi fighters before sending them back to Iraq to conduct attacks.
"He was directed by the Iranian Quds force to move Iraqis in and out of Iraq and report on the training and operations of Iraqi special groups," he said, adding that the Quds Force was training between 20 and 60 Iraqis at the time.
"They were being taught how to use EFPs (explosively-formed penetrators), mortars, rockets, as well as intelligence, sniper, and kidnapping operations," Bergner said.
US commanders have long accused Iran of supplying EFPs -- sophisticated roadside bombs that launch a fist-size chunk of molten metal capable of slicing through armoured vehicles -- to armed groups in Iraq.
Hundreds of US troops have fallen victims to these weapons since May 2004, when they first appeared on the Iraqi battlefield, and Hezbollah used them to deadly effect in its conflict last year with Israel in southern Lebanon.
On Friday, a top US commander said Iran was also behind increasing mortar bombardments of the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the Iraqi parliament and the US and British embassies.
"Much of the indirect fire that we receive, especially that which is pointed at the International Zone, the Green Zone, is in fact Iranian," Major General Joseph Fil told reporters.
"We check the tail fins of the mortars, when we find the rockets -- and frequently we're able to find them preemptively, before they actually launch," he said, adding that most originated in and around Sadr City.
Tehran has always denied the charges, insisting it supports the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and blaming Iraq's myriad conflicts on the US occupation.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday dismissed the US allegations.
"American accusations against Iran about Iraq... are unfounded," Khamenei said. "There is no doubt about the Iranian government's and people's hatred towards the US administration but America's problem stems from elsewhere."
In May, the US ambassador to Iraq and his Iranian counterpart met in Baghdad for landmark talks aimed at improving security in the war-torn country, but US commanders charge that Iran has continued to foment unrest.
Last week the US embassy's second highest ranking diplomat said there were no future talks on the horizon.
"While the Iranian side had stated some common desires and goals for Iraq in terms of stability, peace, democracy and so forth... their actions were out of line with their stated goals and objectives," charge d'affaires Daniel Speckhard said.
(includes wire sources.)
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The following video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast on July 2.
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