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Signs of
Iran's Hand in Iraq
By Mark Kukis / BAGHDAD
23/03/08 "TIME"
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One of the armor-piercing roadside bombs in Iraq has a nickname
among the militants who place the device. They call it the Najadia, a short variation on the long name of Iran's president,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "My group and I believe honestly in
fighting the Americans - and getting financial benefit out of
it," says Hussein Ali, an Iraqi Shi'ite guerrilla who recounted
a journey to Iran for training in explosives in an interview
with TIME. "We became very professional in planting and using
the mine called BMZ2, which is a Russian mine modified in Iran
for use against the American armor."
Despite a drop in violence across Iraq, U.S. officials in
Baghdad and Washington have kept up accusations against Iran,
saying Tehran is involved in nothing less than training and
funding a shadow army of Shi'ite militants set against U.S.
forces in Iraq. In the face of these U.S. assertions, the Iraqi
government publicly says it has no evidence of an Iranian
training program for Iraqi militants. "We don't have the proof
that the American have," says Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.
"Normally the intelligence information the Americans have is not
allowed to circulate." The issue was also not discussed, al-Dabbagh
says, in official talks during Ahmadinejad's recent visit to
Baghdad, where the Iranian leader enjoyed a warm reception that
reflected deepening ties between Iran and Iraq. Iran has offered
unflinching denials of subversive and anti-U.S. activity in
Iraq.
For months, a range of U.S. officials in Baghdad have repeatedly
aired allegations against Iran in public while offering almost
no convincing proof, arguing that doing so would reveal
classified information. Military officials in Iraq have told
TIME that militia fighters in U.S. custody have admitted to
training in Iran during interrogations but refuse to give
further details. However, recent interviews by TIME with Iraqi
militants who recounted visits to Iran for training largely
(though not perfectly) fit patterns described by American
officials in Baghdad and Washington regarding Tehran's role.
According to U.S. claims, Iraqi recruits from the Mahdi Army of
Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and other militias have traveled
in groups numbering between 20 and 60 to Iran in a training
program organized by the Quds Force that dates back to 2004.
Handlers from the Quds Force, an elite paramilitary wing of the
Iranian army, allegedly transport recruits to training camps
near Tehran.
Ali, whose name is an alias, told TIME that there were indeed
cells of fighters drawn from the ranks of the Mahdi Army who are
now operating essentially at the behest of handlers and
financiers with links to Iranian intelligence services. "They
are gangs working under the name of Mahdi Army," says Ali, who
joined the Mahdi Army in 2004. "The real Mahdi Army has nothing
to do with them."
U.S. military officials view such cells as rogue elements of the
Mahdi Army, making them viable targets of attack despite the
prevailing cease-fire declared by Sadr. But the lines between
Sadr's militiamen and Iranian-backed operatives who emerge from
those ranks are blurry at best in the murky world of Iraq's
guerrilla movement. Ali, himself a mainline Mahdi member, says
he was taken to Iran for training and, in fact, continues to
receive financial support from operatives linked to Iranian
intelligence. During his interview with TIME, he did not discuss
whether his Mahdi Army superiors knew any of this.
Once inside Iran, U.S. officials say, Iraqi volunteers hone
skills needed to use armor-piercing roadside bombs, mortars and
rockets against targets in Iraq. U.S. officials say, in
addition, that Quds Force trainers, working at times apparently
with experienced instructors from the Lebanese militia Hizballah,
also instruct Iraqi recruits in intelligence techniques, sniper
shooting and kidnapping operations before transporting them back
across the border. Once in Iraq again, militants who have
undergone Iranian training reportedly form cells that U.S.
officials now refer to as "special groups." These cells, say
U.S. officials, continue to receive funds, weapons and direction
from the Quds Force as they mount attacks in Iraq against
American troops.
Ali's own training in Iran came in late 2005, when he says he
and a group of roughly 14 other Iraqis drove to the southern
city of Amarah, near the Iranian border. Everything had been
arranged through contacts in Syria and Lebanon, where he and his
group had fled for a time trying to avoid capture by American
forces. According to Ali, a convoy of new sport utility vehicles
with drivers speaking only broken Arabic was waiting for them in
Amarah. Soon the group was on the road east for a five-hour
drive. The destination was an Iranian training facility, where
instructors told the recruits not to speak to anyone but them.
"We saw a lot of really strange people, a lot of men wearing
very long beards," Ali says.
Ali and four others were given training in advanced explosives
with both lectures and hands-on practice. The course was done in
45 days. At the end, a handler talked to each of them separately
and gave them a phone number to call in Iraq. Ali was given
$10,000 in cash, he said, with a handler telling him the money
was meant to support his efforts.
"I was shocked," says Ali, who sat for an interview with TIME on
the southern outskirts of Baghdad. "I never dreamed I would hold
$10,000 in my hands." The starter money, however, was only a
"drop in the sea." Ali says he continues to phone for funds with
the contacts he made in Iran and that his group has conducted
two successful roadside bomb attacks against American forces
operating north of Baghdad.
Another Shi'ite guerrilla fighter interviewed by TIME offered a
similar account, though he considered his group nationalist
rather than sectarian. Says Abu Mohammed of his trainers in
Iran: "They all speak perfect Arabic with a Lebanese accent. But
we found out when we asked that they are either Quds Force or
Iranian intelligence." Mohammed and his group, however, later
lost interest in attacking coalition troops and eventually
parted ways with their Iranian handlers.
Last fall, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker suggested that
Iran may be lessening its militant activities in Iraq. He
pointed to the cease-fire by Sadr, speculating that Iran may
have had a hand in convincing the Shi'a warlord to take that
approach. Crocker noted that rocket attacks against the Green
Zone had dropped and wondered aloud whether Tehran was being
suddenly more cooperative in Iraq.
Now, however, most of that talk has fallen away. Gen. David
Petraeus recently made a point of saying publicly that Iran
continues to train Iraqi militants. "These are individuals with
considerable skill who can train other individuals in Iraq,"
said Petraeus, who spoke to reporters as he toured a border post
in southern Iraq facing Iran. "It is a very unhelpful addition
to the mix. We call it a lethal accelerant to a situation in
Iraq that already has enough challenges."
TIME's staff in Iraq contributed to this article View this
article on Time.com
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