Posted on 10/14/2004 6:03:13 PM PDT by nuconvert
Iraq Accuses Iranian Embassy of Killing Agents
October 14, 2004
Agence France Presse/ AFP
Iraq's national intelligence chief Mohammed al-Shahwani has accused Iran's Baghdad embassy of masterminding an assassination campaign that has seen 18 intelligence agents killed since mid-September.
Shahwani told AFP a series of raids on three Iranian "safe houses" in Baghdad on September 29 had uncovered a treasure trove of documents linking Iran to plots to kill members of the intelligence service and using the Badr former militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq's (SCIRI) as its tool.
SCIRI has vigourously denied the allegations and counter-charged that the intelligence service is full of veterans of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's military who are now renewing their vendetta against former Shiite resistance groups based out of Iran in the 1980s.
Since mid-September, 18 Iraqi intelligence agents have been killed in Iraq, 10 of them by the Badr organisation on orders from Iran and the rest by Al-Qaeda-linked foreign militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, Shahwani charged.
"Badr and Zarqawi have assassinated 18 of my men," Shahwani said from his heavily-guarded villa in central Baghdad.
Shahwani confirmed that two of his intelligence agents were beheaded by Zarqawi's Unity and Holy War group, as seen in a video released by the fighters on Wednesday.
The intelligence chief said he suspected Tehran was funding Zarqawi, but lacked conclusive proof.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's government has escalated its rhetoric against Iran in recent days, accusing the neighbouring Islamic republic of running a campaign of sabotage in Iraq.
But Shahwani's claims of huge caches of documents seized in the September raids are the most explicit charges to date against Iran and the first time an Iraqi party has been publicly named as Tehran's proxy.
Shahwani said that during the raids, "Documents were obtained ... (showing) the Iranian regime ... is seeking to embroil some of the SCIRI members in subversive acts to exaccerbate Iraq's wounds and dominate it."
The intelligence director said the documents showed Iran had a 45-million-dollar budget for sowing chaos in Iraq and had recruited members of Badr and a subsidiary party, Hezbollah, to kill Iraqi intelligence agents.
"A document (showed) that Iran allocated a budget to Badr Corps, totalling 45 million dollars.
"Among the objectives of this budget is to back the formation of a security service grouping several directorates to carry out a set of subversive acts including ... physical liquidation."
Shahwani flipped through folders of charts and writing in Farsi that he said his agents were still sifting through.
He claimed his intelligence service had obtained the names and addresses of Badr members working directly for Iran.
Badr, the former paramilitary wing of SCIRI, has formerly renounced violence since the party returned to Iraq in the spring of 2003 after a 20-year exile in Iran.
SCIRI vehemently denies the charges.
"These are false accusations made against the organisation. Badr and SCIRI are the biggest threats to terrorists," said SCIRI spokesman Haitham al-Husseini.
Instead, Husseini charged that Shahwani, a general who fled Saddam's Iraq, was running amuck and taking out his bias against Shiite parties which fought Saddam during the 1980s when Iran was at war with Iraq.
"We criticise the way the new intelligence agency is ... hiring ex-officers of Saddam Hussein's military back to their posts. They have a history of targeting SCIRI and Badr members."
The two groups currently serve in the interim parliament and Allawi government.
Shahwani says that four Iraqis who were arrested following a botched assassination attempt on an Iraqi intelligence officer in September belonged to the Hezbollah of Iraq party and had confessed to being on the payroll of Iran's intelligence service
Hezbollah is part of the SCIRI alliance of Shiite parties.
The intelligence chief took out dossiers and glossy photos of 27 members of Iran's embassy in Iraq and accused them of masterminding Iranian covert operations.
"We will ask them to leave the country," Shahwani said.
Shahwani also claimed that Iranian spies had held meetings at Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi's Baghdad home since May when the one-time Pentagon favourite's house was raided by Iraqi police and US forces, saying that Chalabi was suspected by the Americans of leaking intelligence to Iran.
The Iraqi foreign ministry declined to comment on the intelligence chief's allegations against the embassy.
We'll lets publicize it. It sounds like an 'Act of War'.
"The intelligence director said the documents showed Iran had a 45-million-dollar budget for sowing chaos in Iraq and had recruited members of Badr and a subsidiary party, Hezbollah, to kill Iraqi intelligence agents."
It's high time to liberate the people of Iran.
Why aren't they shutting the Iranian Embassy down? It's like having a mini-Falluja right in the middle of Baghdad.
Pong
I stick by an earlier prediction about the outcome of this war:
Bush's strategy is to have Iran surrounded with American air power and sea power, and we go in with Iraqi troops en masse, with US special forces making surgical strikes while arming the Iranian populace.
If Kerry wins the election, and with all the election fraud going on now, this scenario, which I believe needs to be carried out, falls apart with Kerry providing nuclear fuel to Iran...which might bring about the first US coup attempt by the military...a Nuclear Iran just cannot be allowed by any thinking nation.
I don't know.
Sending Iraqis into Iran isn't a good thing. They have a bad history and that would lead to trouble. The Iranian people would definitely defend any invasion using Iraqis.
I like the idea of "arming the Iranian populace", but we want them using the weapons against the regime, not us.
I had no idea there was such a strange thing as Iranian embassy in Baghdad.
I'll bet you did and forgot. It's been in the news several times in the past 6 months alone. In April, an Iranian diplomat of the embassy was killed (most likely by the Iranians themselves), and in August an embassy diplomat there was kidnapped. He was just set free.
Don't worry about a nuclear Iran. If Kerry steals the eleciton, Israel will bomb Iran in December and destroy its nuclear facilities while Bush is still President. If necessary, Israel will bomb them again even if Kerry is President. I'll bet they bought enough smart bombs from us for two major rounds of bombing in Iran.
I don't believe I've ever seen a budget line item for "sowing chaos."
LOL
I think it's included in the "Mayhem" budget.
Do you know that Iran has an Agriculture Jihad Ministry?
There's a title.....lol
What's the mission there? Burning crops? Blowing up pigs and silos?
lol. Maybe their motto is, "We're serious about our fruits and nuts" (of course this could be the motto of the Guardian Council, also)
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