By Bill Gertz
The Washington Times, 12 February 2007.
BAGHDAD — Iran's leadership has ordered the production and transfer of advanced improvised explosive devices and other weapons to insurgency groups in Iraq, U.S. officials said.
U.S. officials said Iran has developed so-called explosively-formed projectiles, tested by Hizbullah in Lebanon and then sent to Sunni and Shi'ite insurgency groups in Iraq in 2006, Middle East Newsline reported.
An officer said the order came from the Iranian leadership as part of a campaign to destabilize Iraq.
"Iran is involved in supplying explosively-formed projectiles or EFPs and other material to Iraqi extremist groups," a senior official said.
[On Monday, about dozens were killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad. The strike took place as the U.S. military reported achievements in its counter-insurgency offensive conducted with Iraq's military and police in the capital.]
EFPs, first seen in Iraq in 2004, have been able to penetrate the most protected of U.S. armored vehicles, including the M1A2 main battle tank, officials said. They said the EFP was comprised of tail fins from 81 mm and 60 mm mortars that fire molten copper into the undercarriage of U.S. combat vehicles.
"The weapons had characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran," a U.S. officer, who could not be named, told a briefing on Sunday. "Iran is the only country in the region that produces these weapons."
From June 2004 until February 2006, officials said, more than 170 Americans were killed by the EFPs. They said the bombs were produced in Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and smuggled into Iraq by the Mahdi Army. The U.S. military was said to have found a cache of EFPs in 2005.
"We assess these activities are coming from the highest levels of the Iranian government," the officer said. "The smoking gun of an Iranian standing over an American with a gun — it's never going to happen."
Officials said components for the EFPs have been smuggled into Iraq from the Iranian border city of Meran. They said EFP parts have also arrived in the Basra area in southern Iraq.
At the news conference, U.S. officials displayed photographs of what they said were Iranian weapons captured in Iraq. They included a Misagh-1 surface-to-air missile, EFPs and mortar shells, some of which contained Iranian serial numbers. Iraqi insurgency groups were also believed to have received the Russian-origin SA-7, SA-14 and SA-16 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft systems.
"We know more than we can show," another official said.
Officials said a Shi'ite parliamentarian was alleged to have served as a liasion for the smuggling of Iranian weapons into Iraq in cooperation with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They identified the parliamentarian as Jamal Jaafar Mohammed, said to have been connected to the IRGC's Quds Force and believed to have fled to Iran.
The Quds Force was also said to have been training and equipping Hizbullah in Lebanon. Officials said Quds reports directly to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and that its commander was one of six Iranians captured by U.S. troops in Irbil in January 2007. The operational commander was identified as Mohsin Chizari, later released under Iraqi government pressure.
"The Quds Force arms extremists and insurgents to carry out terrorist attacks and guerrilla warfare," the official said. "The Quds Force provides advice, training and weapons to proxy forces in Iraq. We have been able to determine that this material, especially on the EFP level, is coming from the IRGC-Quds Force."
Citation: Bill Gertz. "Iran Arms Iraqi Insurgents," The Washington Times, 12 February 2007.
Original URL: http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20070212-122839-9814r