US links 5 Iranians to Iraq Insurgency
By Lauren Frayer
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 14, 2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Five Iranians arrested in northern Iraq last week were connected
to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in
Iraq, the U.S. military said Sunday.
The statement provided the first details from the military on the five people
detained by U.S.-led forces Thursday in a raid on what the Iraqis and Tehran
said was an Iranian liaison office in Irbil, a city in Kurdish-controlled
northern Iraq about 220 miles north of Baghdad.
The military said the Qods Force faction of the
Revolutionary Guard, the military pillar of Iran's Islamic Revolution, is “known
for providing funds, weapons, improvised explosive device technology and
training to extremist groups attempting to destabilize the Government of Iraq
and attack Coalition forces.”
“Qods” is the Arabic name for Jerusalem, and a
frequent name for political or military factions across the Muslim world.
Iran's government denied the five detainees had
been involved in financing and arming insurgents and called for their release
along with compensation for damages.
“Their job was basically consular, official and
in the framework of regulations,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad
Ali Hosseini said Sunday. “What the Americans express was incorrect and
hyperbole against Iran in order to justify their acts.”
The detentions came as President Bush vowed to
isolate Iran and Syria, which the U.S. has accused of fueling attacks in Iraq,
as part of his new war strategy. The position has raised concerns in Iraq that
tensions among the three countries were hurting Iraq's interests.
The arrests were made Thursday, the same day
Bush delivered a speech outlining a new strategy for Iraq, in which he accused
Iran and Syria of not doing enough to block terrorists from entering Iraq over
their borders.
“We will disrupt the attacks on our forces,”
Bush said Wednesday. “We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria.
And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and
training to our enemies in Iraq.”
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was expected to
visit Syria on Sunday, becoming the first Iraqi president to travel to the
country in nearly three decades. Mahmoud Othman, an Iraqi lawmaker close to
Talabani, said the Syria trip was not intended as a snub to Bush. It has been
planned for nearly a year, but its date was finalized about two weeks ago, he
said from Baghdad.
Hosseini said the United States was resorting
to “hostility and conflict toward neighbors of Iraq” because it did not want to
acknowledge it had failed to stabilize Iraq.
A standoff already exists between the U.S. and
Iran over Tehran's atomic program. Iran has rejected all allegations that it is
trying to make nuclear arms.
There has been debate over whether the Irbil
office where the men were arrested had diplomatic status, and would therefore be
protected by international treaties.
Both Hosseini and Iraqi Foreign Minister
Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, described it as a liaison office that had government
approval and was in the process of being approved as an Iranian consulate. In
Iran, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the U.S. raid constituted an
intervention in Iranian-Iraqi affairs.
The United States has repeatedly denied the
office was a consulate and the State Department has said no legitimate
diplomatic activity was being carried out at the site.
Separately, the Iraqi army arrested 50
suspected insurgents and seized nearly 2,000 rockets in a raid in a
predominantly Shiite area 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, Defense Ministry
spokesman Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Shaker said Sunday. The suspects were detained late
Saturday.
The Iraqi army arrested 32 other suspected
insurgents during house-to-house searches in Abu Ghraib, on the western
outskirts of Baghdad, Shaker said. They also seized seven cars packed with light
weapons and 40 barrels of chemicals that could be used in making explosives.
In violence Sunday, at least six people were
found dead or killed. A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol in a
commercial area of Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding six. A mortar attack
killed another civilian in the capital, and a beheaded body was discovered in
Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, police said.
Three other people – a civilian, a 20-year-old
student and a Shiite dairy store owner – were shot dead in separate attacks in
the northern city of Mosul, police there said.
Separately, the British Ministry of Defense
confirmed that a British soldier was killed Saturday in fighting in the southern
city of Basra.
Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in
Tehran contributed to this story.
