A gauge of Iran's hand in Iraq
New US charges that it is working with Hizbullah in Iraq.
from the July 5, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
There are many sources for enhanced roadside bombs. Some of the explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) copy previous Hizbullah ones, though Abedin notes that Saddam Hussein sent a military intelligence team to Lebanon in 1995 to learn about Hizbullah's use of the bombs. US and British forces routinely find EFP workshops in central and southern Iraq.
Hizbullah sees some of Iraq's insurgents as part of a Shiite-led "Axis of Resistance" that includes Iran, Syria, and Palestinian groups like Hamas.
Hizbullah did offer assistance to Iraqi insurgents early on, but were told they were not needed, says Timur Goksel, a Beirut-based security analyst. "They have tried to stay away from the Iraq war as an organization, although some Hizbullah individuals have traveled there on their own," he says.
Among them appears to be Daqduq who, if that is his real name and he is a Hizbullah veteran as the US claims, may hold an important guerrilla pedigree.
A Hizbullah fighter called Abdel-Karim Daqduq was killed battling the Israelis in south Lebanon in 1999. A Hizbullah squad that assassinated a commander of an Israeli proxy militia in 2000 was named "Ibrahim Daqduq," after a dead Hizbullah fighter of note.
The family comes from the Hizbullah bastion of Ait al-Shaab, a south Lebanon village hard hit by the war last summer – and from where another Daqduq was briefly abducted by the Israelis during the conflict.
But Hizbullah has another link to Iraq that reaches back three decades, when much of the leadership had religious training in Najaf. "The ties that bind Hizbullah with the Iraqi Shiite community are deep, longstanding, and brotherly," adds Ranstorp. "There is a natural line running through Beirut, and Baghdad and Najaf, to Tehran."
Still, some argue, the stepped up US accusations may be only tactical move. "The Americans know full well that the Iranians are not really their enemy in Iraq," says Abedin. "The Iranians may have hurt Americans or Britons here or there, they may have even been complicit in the killing of American soldiers."
"But if you look at the sheer range of enemies the US faces in Iraq, the Iranians pale in comparison," he says. "The smart elements in the US occupation machine in Iraq understand that if they are to extricate themselves successfully ... they need a lot of Iranian help."
RSS feed
