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Ex-intelligence officer says Tehran deploying agents in Iraq

BBC - Monitoring Service
Apr 3, 2004

Text of report by Ali Nurizadah in London, entitled "Former Iranian intelligence officer: Tehran is deploying its agents in Iraq from north to south", published by London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat on 3 April

The former official in charge of the Iraqi file in Iranian intelligence has disclosed in a statement to Al-Sharq al-Awsat information about the extensive Iranian security presence in Iraq, which he said is not confined to the Shi'i cities alone but extends from Zakho in the north to Umm al-Khasib in the south.

The official, who is known in Iraq by the name "Hajj Saeedi", said that elements from Iran's Revolutionary Guards intelligence and Quds Corps did not infiltrate into Iraqi territories during and after the war only but hundreds of intelligence agents, among them a number of Iraqi agents and returnees (Iraqis expelled by Saddam Husayn's regime in the 1970's and 1980's on the pretext of their Iranian origins) returned to Iraq before the war across the Kurdish areas that were not under the central government's control.

Iranian intelligence benefited after the war from the lack of any controls in the border areas to send a group of its best elements to Iraq, some of them disguised as students and clerics and others as part of the Shi'i organizations' militias.

"Hajj Saeedi", who fled from Iran recently, pointed out that the liquidation of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, chairman of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, last summer was "one of the most important achievements of the Quds Corps intelligence elements who succeeded in carrying out their mission and leaving Iraq without any difficulty", according to him.

He also revealed a failed attempt to assassinate Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the senior Shi'i religious leader, and said he sent a message through a friend who visited Al-Sistani in his house on the eve of Id al-Adha last year, warning Al-Sistani not to receive some students and clerics who came from Iran to meet him after the id.

As he told Al-Sharq al-Awsat, "Hajj Saeedi" then contacted one of Al-Sistani's aides from inside Iraq and gave him details of the plan to assassinate the Shi'i leader. He added that another plan was prepared to assassinate Ayatollah Ishaq al-Fayyadi too.

Asked where the Iranian intelligence elements are based in Iraq, "Hajj Saeedi" said there are some offices in Al-Sulaymaniyah and Darband-i Khan in the north that are known to everyone, but the Kurdish authorities do not allow these offices' elements to carry out any activities that are harmful to Iraq's security and national interests. The danger comes from the offices that have fronts other than security and intelligence. They include 18 offices of "charity" foundations in Al-Kazimiyah and Madinat al-Sadr (formerly Al-Thawrah) in Baghdad, Karbala, Al-Najaf, Al-Kufah, Al-Nasiriyah, Basra and other cities where the Shi'is are the majority. They operate under the cover of helping the poor and oppressed with money, medicines, and daily necessities from food to clothes. New agents are recruited daily in these offices.

"Hajj Saeedi" went on to say that the Iranian intelligence plan for turning Iraq into a second Iran is extensive and the focus is at present on recruiting thousands of Shi'i youths for the stage during the parliamentary elections would be held in Iraq. The recruits have to mobilize their relatives and acquaintances to vote for the candidates selected by Iranian intelligence. He pointed out that the Iranian radio and television networks, press agencies and some newspapers close to the security organs are also fronts through which Quds Corps and Revolutionary Guards intelligence elements enter Iraq.

It is recalled that these networks, agencies and newspapers have more than 300 correspondents and technicians operating in Iraq at present and the possibility cannot be ruled that the Quds Corps and Guards intelligence had planted some of their elements among them as correspondents who can move in all Iraq's areas with their press cards and deliver the intelligence offices' messages and instructions to their local agents in Iraq.

Regarding the reports that the Iranian leadership has allocated 1bn dollars to prevent the establishment of a modern secular democratic state in Iraq, the official said the monthly allocations for the public and secret security offices in Iraq are more 70m dollars. An amount of 5m dollars is distributed in some religious schools as monthly salaries for the students and assistance to some clerics who are cooperating. More than 2,700 houses, apartments, and rooms were leased in Karbala and Al-Najaf by local collaborators to house the intelligence and Quds Corps elements in 14 Iraqi cities. "Hajj Saeedi" added that the measures taken by the two Kurdish administrations during recent months prompted the Revolutionary Guards and Quds Corps intelligence to implement a plan aimed at inciting the Shi'i Turkomans against the Kurds. He added that some Shi'i Turkoman leaders went to Tehran where they received huge financial aid and guarantees that Iran would support them if confrontations broke out between them and the Kurds.

He concluded his statement by saying: "In the 1980's and on the orders of Imam Khomeyni, we took our battle with the United States to Lebanon where we hit the US marines base and the US Embassy in Beirut and kidnapped William Buckley, head of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Middle East, and several American citizens. The United States was forced to recognize our role in Lebanon. We are today moving our battle with the United States to Iraq on the orders of the revolution guide so that it will recognize our role there too."