BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 2, 2007
U.S. General Points Finger At Iran
Claims Iranian Military Unit Had Advance Knowledge Of January Attack That Killed 5 Americans
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Play CBS Video Video Hezbollah Cells Seen In Iraq The U.S. military has accused the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah of conspiring with Iran to kill American and Iraqi troops. Lara Logan reports from Iraq.
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U.S. soldiers from Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Second Infantry Division, on patrol in Baghdad, July 1, 2007. (AP)
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An Iraqi policeman prepares to tow a damaged patrol vehicle in Baghdad, July 1, 2007. Two Iraqi policemen were killed Sunday when a roadside bomb struck their patrol. (AP)
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Photo Essay Iraq In Pictures A daily diary with scenes of the latest attacks and snapshots from the effort to rebuild a nation.
These extremist Shiite militia groups are behind much of Iraq's violence, and although the U.S. army has long accused Iran of funding them, today it went further then ever, pointing a finger directly at the Iranian government, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.
"Our intelligence reveals that senior leadership in Iran is aware of this activity," said U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner.
Bergner said a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative, Ali Mussa Dakdouk, was captured March 20 in southern Iraq. Bergner said Dakdouk served for 24 years in Hezbollah and was "working in Iraq as a surrogate for the Iranian Quds force."
The general also said that Dakdouk was a liaison between the Iranians and a breakaway Shiite group led by Qais al-Kazaali, a former spokesman for cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Bergner said al-Kazaali's group carried out the January attack against a provincial government building in Karbala and that the Iranians assisted in preparations.
These charges will not improve already frosty relations between the United States and Iran, and they come at a time when the U.S. military is under heavy pressure at home to produce results in Iraq, adds Logan.
In other recent developments:
Sadr City is the Iraqi capital's largest Shiite neighborhood home to some 2.5 million people making U.S. raids there potentially embarrassing for al-Maliki's Shiite-led government. The district is also the stronghold of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who was once al-Maliki's ally.
The military says U.S. troops uncovered a mass grave with as many as 40 bodies at a site south of Fallujah. It says a tip from a local resident led forces to the location. Between 35 and 40 bodies were found with gunshot wounds and limbs bound.
Reports of 20 beheaded bodies found south of Baghdad earlier this week were untrue and may have been fabricated by insurgents aiming to incite violence and revenge killings, the U.S. military said Saturday.
On Thursday, many Iraqi and international media outlets aired news of the bodies, quoting unnamed Iraqi police. The decapitated bodies had allegedly turned up on the banks of the Tigris River near Salman Pak, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad.
At the time, the Interior Ministry tried to send troops to the area to confirm the discovery, but the visit was called off because the area was too dangerous. On Saturday, the U.S. military issued a statement saying it had investigated the reports of the bodies and ultimately found them to be false. "Anti-Iraqi Forces are known for purposely providing false information to the media to incite violence and revenge killings, and they may well have been the source of this misinformation," the statement said.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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