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U.S. Blames Iran for Recent Iraq Violence NewsMax.com Wires BAGHDAD -- 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. Military spokesman Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner said the Qods Force was also using the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite militia group Hezbollah to sponsor militant activity in Iraq. In fresh violence, the U.S. military said four U.S. soldiers and one Marine were killed in various attacks in Iraq on Sunday, marking a bloody start to the month for American forces. Washington has long accused the Qods Force of arming and training Shi'ite militants who attack U.S. and Iraqi soldiers but previously it said it was not clear whether these actions were carried out with the full knowledge of Iran's leadership. Shi'ite Iran denies 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," Bergner told a news conference. "We also understand that senior Iraqi leaders have expressed their concerns to the Iranian government about the activities." Story Continues Below
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 said the United States had discovered the existence of three small camps near Tehran where Iraqi Shi'ite militants were trained by Qods Force and Hezbollah operatives. Between 20-60 militants were trained at any given time, he said. Bergner said the Qods Force was involved in an attack in the Shi'ite city of Kerbala in January when gunmen, disguised as Americans, tricked their way into a government compound and killed one U.S. soldier and abducted four others whom they later killed. The attackers spoke English, wore American-looking uniforms and carried U.S.-type weapons, which got them through Iraqi checkpoints to reach the compound. "The Qods Force had developed detailed information regarding our soldiers' activities, shift changes and defenses, and this information was shared with the attackers," Bergner said, referring to the brazen assault. He also said a Hezbollah veteran, Ali Mussa Daqduq, was detained in southern Iraq in March. Daqduq was there to organize secret cells to mirror Hezbollah's structure in Lebanon, he said. A Hezbollah spokesman in Beirut said he was aware of Bergner's accusations, but had no immediate comment. 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. The fresh charges against Iran come at a sensitive time. On Sunday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters he was pressing the United States and Iran to hold a second round of talks in Baghdad to follow up a landmark meeting on May 28, but that no date has been set. The May meeting between U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Kazemi-Qomi was the most high-profile meeting of the two enemies in almost three decades. Both envoys described the talks as positive. Announcing the latest troop deaths, the U.S. military said two soldiers and one Marine were killed in western Anbar province on Sunday. Two soldiers were also killed in Baghdad. June was costly for U.S. forces, with 101 soldiers and Marines killed. That made the April-June quarter the bloodiest since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Around 3,580 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. Many tens of thousands of Iraqis have also lost their lives.
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