CAIRO, Egypt, Feb. 16, 2007

The Quds Puzzle

Secretive Iranian Military Unit Is Accused By U.S. Of Arming Iraqi Militias

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By Joel Roberts

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In his first press conference of 2007, President Bush reiterated claims that Iran is helping insurgents in Iraq and defended his nuclear pact with North Korea. Bill Plante reports.

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A member of the media points to a piece of evidence gathered by U.S. military on Iran's support to militant Iraqis fighting American forces, at a news conference in Baghdad on Feb. 14, 2007. (AP)

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(AP)
The chief U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, said Iranian and Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody said in interrogations that "the Quds Force provides support to extremist groups here in Iraq both in the forms of money and in weaponry."

U.S. forces detained six Iranians in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil in January, one of whom military officials say is the Quds Forces' operational commander in Iraq, Mohsin Chizari.

"All of these efforts in which we have picked up these Quds Force officers are part of these efforts in which to disrupt these supply networks," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday at a Pentagon briefing.

U.S. military officials have said the Quds Force is supplying "rogue elements" of the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia led by an anti-American cleric.

But the Quds Force's help appears to go beyond militiamen attacking U.S. troops. It supplies training and some weapons to the Badr Brigade — a militia linked to Iraq's biggest Shiite political party — and smaller Shiite factions in the south, an official with a Shiite political party in Iraq who has close knowledge of militia activity told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

The Badr Brigade is linked to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the party headed by cleric Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most powerful politicians, who met with Bush at the White House in December.

America's Kurdish allies also have past links with the Quds Force, which helped them against Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1990s. Notably, the six Iranians seized by U.S. troops were in Kurdish-controlled Irbil.

In addition to supplying weapons to Iraqi militias, the Quds Force has been recruiting Iraqi Shiites, giving them up to $150 a month and sending some to Iran for training, the Shiite political party official told the AP.

Caldwell acknowledged that detainees had said, under interrogation, that Quds operatives were supplying weapons to factions in the U.S.-backed Iraqi government. He said U.S. officials had asked political parties and government officials about the material.

"Some explained that there is a need for certain weaponry to come in for protection purposes," he told a Baghdad news conference Wednesday. "The concern we had ... is that on that list were sniper rifles, mortars and some elements that are clearly offensive in nature."

At most, Iran's entire Quds Force probably numbers only about 2,000 — only about 800 of whom are core operatives, according to Abedin, the expert at the London-based think tank.

Abedin doubted the Quds Force was directly giving militias weapons, arguing that militias have their own domestic networks for building and obtaining weapons. But he said Quds was undoubtedly was providing intelligence and other organizational help.

"It would be very incriminating and dangerous for Iran to directly supply weapons to the militias, and it's not a part of Iranian policy to directly confront the Americans," he said.

Instead, the goal is likely "to enable these armed formations ... to gain an advantage over their Sunni rivals" in the battle for power that Iran expects could erupt later.

"They are looking to beyond, when the Americans withdraw," he said. "They see the Shiite militias as natural allies."

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The Quds Puzzle

Secretive Iranian Military Unit Is Accused By U.S. Of Arming Iraqi Militias

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