Jun 29 2006

Breaking: Iranians Caught Fighting In Iraq

Published by at 11:45 am under All General Discussions,Iraq

Iraqi and US forces have been battling Shiite Militias, militias which have been staffed by Iranians clearly working to destabilize the Iraq democratically elected government.

Iraqi and U.S. troops battled Shi’ite militiamen in a village northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, and witnesses and police said U.S. helicopters bombed orchards to flush out gunmen hiding in the palm groves.

Iraqi security officials said Iranian fighters had been captured in the fighting, in which the commander of an Iraqi quick reaction force and two soldiers were shot dead by a sniper. They did not say how the Iranians had been identified.

This is very important news if true. It will be hard evidence of Iranians trying to destabilize Iraq, and could be seen as an act of war against Iraq. And Iraqi Shiites will lose a lot of credibility in being associated with Iranian efforts to break apart the fledgling government. If I was the Kurds, I would be having some serious discussions with the Sunnis about now.

Addendum:It seems the attack is quite timely with this report out only hours ago concerning Iranian Intelligence Agents in the same region:

Agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) are fomenting unrest in Iraq’s southern city of Basra, the Iraqi daily az-Zaman reported on Thursday.

Az-Zaman quoted Iraqi counter-intelligence sources as saying that fighters were being trained in Lebanon under MOIS supervision and sent via the Iranian border to infiltrate Basra.

Some of the fighters were being incorporated into the al-Hussein Battalion which has been responsible for numerous targeted killings and assassinations in Basra.

The daily quoted the sources as saying that the MOIS was the most powerful and influential intelligence service that had infiltrated Basra and several other key Iraqi cities including the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

7 responses so far

7 Responses to “Breaking: Iranians Caught Fighting In Iraq”

  1. clarice says:
    June 29, 2006 at 11:59 am

    I don’t actually think this IS news. We’ve been picking them up and watching them supply the insurgents for a while.

  2. AJStrata says:
    June 29, 2006 at 12:05 pm

    Actually, the reporting is we have picked up very few over time. In any event, it should be news!

  3. protein wisdom says:
    June 29, 2006 at 12:27 pm

    BREAKING: Iranian Fighters Captured in Iraq…

    From "US, Iraqi forces clash with Shi'ite militia" (via AJ Strata):Iraqi and U.S. troops battled Shi'ite militiamen in a village northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, and witnesses and police said U.S. helicopters bombed orchards to flu…

  4. Rocket's Brain Trust says:
    June 29, 2006 at 1:53 pm

    Breaking: Iranians Caught Fighting In Iraq and other news…

    HT The Strata-Sphere

    Breaking: Iranians Caught Fighting In Iraq

    Iraqi and US forces have been battling Shiite Militias, militias which have been staffed by Iranians clearly working to destabilize the Iraq democratically……

  5. crosspatch says:
    June 29, 2006 at 2:51 pm

    Iran has some serious interests in Iraq that go beyond simply political. There are cultural and religious reasons why they might feel a need to have more control over what goes on in Southern Iraq.

    Southern Iraq holds Shia Islam’s most holy sites. Southern Iraq is where that sect of Islam was born. During Saddam’s rule, Shiites were suppressed. Iran became the center of Shiite religious theory and education after the establishment of the Islamic Republic there. The Iranian government has had considerable influence over the religions instruction given by the various schools there and considered all Shiites to be natural extentions of Iran’s influence.

    With the fall of Saddam, the religious institutions in Iraq have blossomed. The Iraqi Shiism is of a much less radical and less militant variety than the Iranian flavor. As the traditional center of the Shiite sect, Iraqi religious schools are gaining a larger percentage of the total shiite student base and Iran’s influence is in decline over time. Iran’s mullocracy could see this as a threat. In order to maintain their dominance over the Shiite sect of Islam, they could well wish to exert some measure of dominance over the Iraqi Shiite theocrats. They might do this by killing members of segments who Iran sees as a greater threat or who Iran has little influence over while giving aid to groups on which it has the most influence.

    Overall, I would say that Iran’s goal isn’t so much meddling in the political sense as it is gaining control of the institutions of Shia Islam in Iraq and maintaining their dominance over global Shiites.

  6. The Sundries Shack says:
    June 30, 2006 at 10:06 am

    Iran in Iraq. The Silence is Deafening….

    Looks like we’ve caught the Iranians red-handed once again.
    Why we’re not openly confronting Ahmadinejad for his active involvement in killing Americans and Iraqis in Iraq is quite beyond me. It’s not like this is something new. The…

  7. Super Fun Power Hour says:
    June 30, 2006 at 12:42 pm

    Iraq – the end is in sight UPDATE…

    If you recall, earlier in the week, 11 Iraqi insurgent groups announced their willingness to work with the government, offering a ceasefire in exchange for a rough time table of American withdrawal. At the time I said ……