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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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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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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Anyone who is struggling to fight an occupying force will accept help from anyone offering it, doesn't need a rocket scientist to figure that one out.
Get the hell out of Iraq, and the groups there won't have the legitimate need to fight you.
Iran has clearly been operating on the principle of "Its not what you know, its what you can prove!" and aiding in the killing of Americans. Despite the fact that we may need to leave Iraq, I find that principle unacceptable! Iran can't kill Americans with impunity! Even if the U.S. does not go to war with Iran over it, the U.S. can't let Iran get away with it either. The U.S. must leave its calling card with Iran! Maybe the U.S. should not be in Iraq but Iran should not be in Iraq either, especially killing us while they are there! The U.S. has known all along what Iran is doing and don't need any Generals to confirm it! Iran is acting like we won't deal with them but enough is enough!
We should be apologising to Syria and Iran for landing them with millions of refugees.
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And, Cons, if you want us to bomb Iran for doing something that the Bush Admin forgot to plan for, do you support $8.00 gas? Look at your Ford F150 and say your goodbyes to it.
Hopefully the Brits have captured all that are involved in this and thwarted any other plans by extremist.
France, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Spain have also tightened their anti-terror precautions.
Our sources add that the London and Glasgow bombing attempts took the Americans by surprise. They had expected the jihadists to strike elsewhere in Europe.
Posted by tbweb at
It's puzzeling however that the idea of Shiite Iranians helping Shiite Iraqi's would be a surprise to anyone. Even if we do somehow manage to secure Iraq, Shiites are the majority... these are the folks who will be in power. They will most certainly have empathy with Iran. Our invasion has helped to create a stronghold for Shiite influence in the Middle East. To say one is for the Iraq war is paramount to saying one is pro-Shiite. And it should be noted that this is a sect that believes strongly in religous orthodoxy. According to Amnesty International, the number of so-called "honor killings" has risen sharply and it is, if not sanctioned, all but ignored by the Iraqi Shiite government. Anyone supporting our continuing presence in Iraq should be forced to watch the horrifying spectacle of a 16-year-old girl being stoned to death by an angry mob of religous zealots...
If Iran invaded Canada we'd help Canada. This is what neighbors do. They get involved because they have to. If idiot Bush and his fellow neocon nuts would have listened to wise council before he invaded, we wouldn't be in this quagmire. We now know that he had ample warning that this is how it would unfold but he didn't listen. Now we all have to pay and pay and pay some more.
I just don't think that Hizbollah now wants to duke it out with the US. It doesn't make sense because they're also trying to work out a political arrangement with their opponents in Lebanon.
Another reason it wouldn't make sense for Hezbollah, and for that matter Iran, to send anyone to Iraq is because Iraq has more than it needs to fight the Americans: It has the manpower, the knowledge and the ammunition to do so.
Saddam Hussein's army of 400,000 that was foolishly dismantled by the US in 2003 has plenty of people willing to fight the US.
If I'm not mistaken that army actually had more Shiites in it than Sunnis, many of whom were not traumatized by Hussein and that actually had careers in the army or outside of it they were looking forward to.
A lot of them are probably fighting the US and that probably has the US all confused and running in circles trying to figure out what's going on.
If anything, Hezbollah and Iran are staying at home enjoying the trials and tribulations of the US army in Iraq on TV.
***Now*** ***Daniel*** ***Ortega*** ***is*** ***back*** ***in*** ***power*** ***in*** ***Nicaragua*** ***despite*** ***the*** ***CIA***'***s*** ***and*** ***United*** ***Fruit***'***s*** ***best*** ***efforts***, ***and*** ***the*** ***Iranians*** ***giving*** ***weapons*** ***to*** ***people*** ***shooting*** ***at*** ***US*** ***soldiers***.
***Clearly*** ***Reagan***, ***North***, ***and*** ***the*** ***rest*** ***of*** ***the*** ***crew*** ***are*** ***guilty*** ***of*** ***treason***. ***American*** ***blood*** ***is*** ***on*** ***their*** ***hands***. ***Reagan*** ***has*** ***gone*** ***to*** ***his*** &***quot***;***reward***&***quot***;, ***but*** ***North*** ***hosts*** ***a*** ***TV*** ***show***!
***Yet*** ***the*** ***Repugniscum*** ***fall*** ***down*** ***and*** ***worship*** ***at*** ***the*** ***clay*** ***feet*** ***of*** ***their*** ***god***.
The Vice-President's Secret Energy Plan includes re-enstating the draft before the year is out.
Stay tuned for the Patriot Act III, which abolishes two-party rule in the US, and creates an official slavery class of citizens...
Its time to bring the troops home and bring to trial the animals in Washington who are responsible for the murder of 3,500 of our finest as well as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
kids age five and less absorb 99 plus percent of punishments as kids age five and less are guilty of 99 plus percent of crimes ... while parents injure and kill 99 plus percent more children than does any other group, soldiers injure and kill 99 plus percent more children per capita than do even the parents
while civilians suffer 99 plus percent of punishments (and civilians age five and less absorb 99 plus perenct of those punishments), civilians suffer those punishments only because civilians are 99 plus percent more likely to assault an authority than is another authority
thoush a civilian is 99 plus percent more likely to be injured or killed by assaulting an authority than is another authority
Weakness in this part of the world is about the most contemptible position one can take, and has already reduced our ability to influence the fledgling Iraqi government, not to mention the Iranians. And obviously, the real problem is, that our forces are so overstretched they couldn't respond to Iran, anyway.
Gotta love this...
Let's see his documents...how he flitted about so easily in occupied, check-pointed Iraq.
Let's see his picture and some interviews with family and friends of this fellow. Is it possible that he was captured in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon?
In the final analysis, it really doesn't matter. He was in Iraq fighting for Iraqi freedom, just as Count Pulaski came from Poland to aid the American freedom fighters against the British oppressors.
Duh!
The US is out there openly trying to destabilize Iran and do 'regime change'.
Whether this claim is backed by hard evidence or not, Iran would have to be comatose to not be returning the favor for violation of its space and region.
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by chinesespy
July 2, 2007 11:16 PM PDT
- valerie plame sold secrets to the iranians
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