The US military had no choice but to arrest the Iranian whose detention last
week infuriated Baghdad and prompted Iran to close its frontier with Iraq, an
American general said on Wednesday.
"We have an obligation, it's our responsibility to operate against such
individuals," US military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner told a news
conference in Baghdad.
"He's a Quds Force officer who has been directly involved with a network that is
providing resources, in training and funding sophisticated weapons that are
targeting Iraqi people, Iraqi forces and coalition forces," said Bergner.
US troops raided a hotel last Thursday in Sulaimani in Iraq's northern Kurdish
autonomous region and seized Iranian Mahmudi Farhadi, claiming he was a member
of the Quds Force, the covert operations arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary
Guards.
Iran and the Kurdish regional government, however, say that Farhadi is a
businessman who was part of a commercial delegation visiting Sulaimani.
Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani on Tuesday called the arrest illegal and demanded his release, while
Iran on Monday shut its frontiers with Iraq in protest, causing mayhem at the
border and major economic losses to traders in the Kurdish region.
"We have great respect for President Talabani and the Iraqi leadership," Bergner
said.
"We have an obligation to share and inform on what we have on this individual.
We have updated the Iraqi leaders on what we have learnt about this officer, and
I think there is an increase of awareness in the government of Iraq about who
this individual really was and exactly what he was involved in."
The responsibility of the US military, the general added, was to "take the
necessary means to improve, to help the government achieve a safe and secure
environment."
There was an understanding in the Iraqi government, he added, "that there is
Quds Force operation in Iraq that is fuelling Special Groups and other
extremists, that are providing sophisticated weapons with destabilising
effects," he said.
"It is clear that Quds Force officers are going to operate in Iraq. We have an
obligation, it's our responsibility to operate against those who belong to these
networks."
