Iran's growing presence in Iraq
The US, Iran, and Iraq agreed Tuesday to form a subcommittee on stability in Iraq.
from the July 25, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Prior to the meeting, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We think that this kind of engagement is important, that at the very least, we can have a direct message to the Iranians that if they truly do want a more stable, secure, prosperous Iraq, they're going to have to change their behavior."
For his part, Iranian government spokesman Ghulam Hussein Ilham said that his country's "top priority" during the talks was to demand the release of five of its nationals held by the US military in Iraq for the past seven months on charges of being senior members an elite force of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which it claims has been arming Shiite militias in Iraq.
While Crocker said the US expressed concerns regarding the Iranian support of violent militias, the ambassador said Iran countered that it had nothing to do with the Islamic Republic.
The main US charge is that the Iranians are providing weapons, explosives, training, and payments of up to $3 million dollars per cell to a rogue offshoot of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia known as "Special Groups." The US military says those militants target mainly US forces and Sunni Arabs. The US asserts that these groups have been supplied with what the Army calls Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs), which are sophisticated roadside bombs that are capable of piercing armored vehicles.
Even as Iranian and US diplomats met, US and Iraqi forces were ringing the town of Husseiniyah, northeast of Baghdad, in an effort to flush out rogue elements of the Mahdi Army that were allegedly holed up inside.
The Dubai-based Kahwaji said Iran's assistance to Shiite militias is undisputed. "I have spoken to many Iraqi and coalition officials and they showed evidence," he said.
Now, say experts, with the US arming and supporting Sunni Arab insurgents and tribes in the fight against Al Qaeda, other more mainstream Shiite factions may look to Iran.
"We warned against arming and supporting some armed groups by multinational forces under the slogan of fighting Al Qaeda. This is a red line that must not be crossed," says Hadi al-Ameri, a senior member of parliament and head of the Badr Organization, a political party that maintains a paramilitary unit trained in Iran.
Hosham Dawod, a Paris-based Iraq expert, says, "The Americans want to rely on former Baathists, tribal, and Islamist elements among the Sunni Arabs. This definitely makes Iran nervous because these are the same people that confronted it in the past. It also troubles many of Iraq's Shiite parties and even the Kurds thereby pushing them closer to Iran because their interests are intertwined."
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