While fighting continues in Iraq today, the American Foreign Policy Council released a translated news item that just might be relevant:
Iran has taken advantage of Iraq’s lingering instability to deeply penetrate its eastern neighbor, where it has launched a massive insurgency campaign aimed at preventing the establishment of a secular, pro-Western state, a former Iranian official has revealed.In a recent interview with London’s influential Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, the intelligence officer – identified only as “Hajj Saeedi” – disclosed that Iran has successfully infiltrated hundreds of operatives from its clerical army, the Pasdaran, into Iraq via Kurdish areas not yet firmly under the control of the Iraqi Governing Council. The Iranian agents – including members of the Pasdaran’s feared paramilitary “Qods Corps” – have since established a major presence throughout the country, where they have begun active recruitment, propaganda and insurgency operations.
According to Saeedi, such activities include the formation of a cadre of radicalized Iraqi youth, who will be mobilized during the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections, as well as the targeting and elimination of prominent opposition leaders – most notably, the assassination last summer of the Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
These efforts are reportedly subsidized by Tehran to the tune of $70 million a month, which has been used in part to pay off friendly Iraqi clerics, maintain an extensive network of safe-houses and bases for Iranian agents, and to foment sectarian strife among Iraq’s minorities. “In the 1980’s and on the orders of Imam Khomeyni, we took our battle with the United States to Lebanon,” Saeedi said. “We are today moving our battle with the United States to Iraq on the orders of the revolution guide so that it will recognize our role there too.”
That fits neatly with the report in today's Washington Times about Iranian and Hezbollah support for Iraq's so-called "cleric" Sheik Muqtuda al-Sadr:
Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr, the fiery Iraqi Shi'ite cleric who ordered his fanatical militia to attack coalition troops, is being supported by Iran and its terror surrogate Hezbollah, according to military sources with access to recent intelligence reports.Sheik al-Sadr's bid to spark a widespread uprising in Iraq comes at a particularly pivotal time. The United States is conducting a massive troop rotation that leaves inexperienced troops in some locations, including Fallujah, which is west of Baghdad and where Sunnis have mounted another series of rebellions.
The United States suspects that his goal is to create a hard-line Shi'ite regime in Iraq modeled after Tehran's government. Military sources said Sheik al-Sadr is being aided directly by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which plays a large role in running that country, and by Hezbollah, an Iranian-created terrorist group based in Lebanon.
One of the sources said these two organizations are supplying the cleric with money, spiritual support and possibly weapons. "Iran does not want a success in Iraq," the source said. "A democratic Iraq is a death knell to the mullahs."
Whatever the Arabic word is for "cleric," it must also translate as "gangster."
Posted by Alan at April 7, 2004 05:26 PM