| Iraq |
| Double US air strike kills 25 suspected Iranian-linked Terrorists |
| 2007-10-05 |
| A DOUBLE US air strike on an Iraqi village killed about 25 suspected Iranian-linked insurgents today, the military said, as Iraqi officials claimed women and children were among the dead. The strikes on Jayzani Al-Imam, 50km north of the capital, came after a ground operation ran into trouble against insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades, the US military said. The operation was launched to capture an insurgent commander linked to Iranian intelligence agents and believed to be smuggling weapons from Iran, accused by the US of fuelling sectarian conflict in Iraq, it said. There were two air strikes; one helicopter, one fixed-wing. There was continued fighting between the two air strikes, US Major Winfield Danielson later said. Iraqi police spokesman Khudhayir al-Timimi said women and children were among the dead and wounded in the raid, but the Americans said they had no knowledge of civilian casualties. Twenty-five people were killed and 40 others wounded, including women and children, in the US air strike that targeted Al-Jayzani, Mr Timimi said. Witnesses said US helicopters attacked Jayzani Al-Imam, near the mainly Shiite town of Al-Khalis, about 2am, destroying at least four houses. A witness saw at least four trucks, each carrying several bodies from the village, being driven through Baghdad to the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf for burial. One of the dead was clearly an elderly man. Ahmed Mohammed, 31, said he had travelled with 15 wounded, among them women and children, to the Medical City Hospital in Baghdad. There are 24 bodies on the ground in the village and 25 others wounded in Al-Khalis hospital, he said. Major Danielson said he had received no reports that any Iraqi civilians were killed as a result of the US air strikes. I can say that we had personnel on the ground who engaged a hostile force, and they didn't assess that there were any women or children present in the area, he said. Coalition forces only engage hostile threats and take every precaution to protect innocent civilians, he said. The US military said the target of the operation was a Special Groups commander believed to be associated with members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Quds Force. Special Groups is a term for what the US military says are secret Shi'ite cells that wage acts of terrorism in Iraq with the financial and military backing of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards units. The decision to carry out the air strikes came when US forces saw an insurgent carrying what appeared to be an anti-aircraft weapon, according to the military. Perceiving hostile intent, supporting aircraft engaged, killing an estimated 25 criminals and destroying two buildings, their statement said. Danielson said the operation's main quarry, the Special Groups commander, appeared to have escaped. We do not believe he was in the area at the time of the engagement and we have not assessed him as one of the terrorists killed, he said. In other operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq today, the US military said it had killed 12 insurgents: seven in Baghdad; one in Yusufiyah, south of the capital and another in the northern city of Kirkuk. It said at the weekend it had seized sophisticated Iranian-made surface-to-air missiles that were being used by insurgents in the war-torn country. Today's clash comes a fortnight after US forces detained Iranian Mahmudi Farhadi in northern Iraq, prompting Tehran to close its border with the Kurdish autonomous region. The US military claims Farhadi is an officer in the covert operations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, accused by American commanders of helping Shi'ite militias involved in Iraq's bloody sectarian conflict. The Iranians maintain he is just a businessman. |
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| Iraq |
| High Ranking al-Quds Commander Captured In Kurdistan, Iranians Squealing |
| 2007-10-04 |
| An Iranian arrested by US forces in IraqsKurdish region had been involved in Teherans intelligence operations in Iraq for more than a decade, an American general said on Wednesday. Multiple sources had also implicated him in providing weapons to Iraqi criminal elements in the service of Iran, US military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner told a news conference in Baghdad. On September 20, US troops raided a hotel in Sulaimaniyah in the autonomous northern autonomous region and seized Mahmudi Farhadi, claiming he was a member of the Quds Force, the covert operations arm of Irans elite Revolutionary Guards. Iran condemned what it called the unwarranted arrest of a businessman it said was in Iraq at the invitation of the Kurdish regional government, and lodged a strong protest with the authorities in Baghdad. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has slammed the arrest as illegal and demanded Farhadi's release. And on September 24, Iran shut its frontiers with Iraq in protest, causing mayhem at the border and major economic losses to traders in the Kurdish region. Bergner insisted on Wednesday that the detainee was a Quds Force operative. 'Farhadi was the officer in charge of the Zafar command, one of three subordinates of the Ramazan core of the Quds Force,' Bergner said. 'As Zafar commander, he was responsible for Quds Force operations in north-central Iraq, including cross border transfers of weapons, people and money. 'We also know that for more than a decade he was involved in Iranian intelligence operations in Iraq,' he added, without elaborating. |
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| Iraq |
| Iran smuggling missiles into Iraq: US military |
| 2007-09-24 |
| Iran is smuggling advanced weaponry, including surface-to-air missiles, into Iraq to be used by extremists against American troops, the US military charged on Sunday. US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told reporters in Baghdad that Iran was shifting sophisticated arms such as RPG-29s, explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), 240-mm rockets and Misagh-1 surface-to-air missiles across its borders into Iraq. Fox reiterated that Iranian national Mahmudi Farhadi, detained on Thursday in the northern province of Sulaimaniyah, is one of the kingpins in the bomb smuggling operations. He is a member of the Ramazan Corps, the Quds Force department responsible for all operations in Iraq, Fox said. We are fulfilling our professional responsibility to detain those individuals who are smuggling these illegal weapons into Iraq, he added. Iran insists that Farhadi is a civilian official on a visit to Iraq as part of a trade delegation. On Saturday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who says Farhadi is a known businessman and not a bomb smuggler, wrote a stern letter to top US officials in Iraq to demand that he be released. US military spokesman Major Winfield Danielson told AFP on Sunday that Farhadi was still being interrogated. We are questioning the individual regarding his knowledge of, and involvement in, the transportation of improvised explosive devices and EFPs from Iran into Iraq, and his role in facilitating travel and training in Iran for Iraqi insurgents, he said. We have not yet determined if charges will be filed. |
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