Iran suspected of backing new suicide attacks

Washington Times via KBU News ^ | 2005 Jul 12 | Nicholas Birch

[Wiz]

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraqi Kurdistan - "A series of suicide bombings in previously peaceful South Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan) has aroused suspicions that elements of the Iranian regime are backing efforts to destabilize the region." writes The Washington Times.

"Before then, Tehran was keen to see the Kurds cooperate with the [Iraqi] Shi’ite parties," he said. "Now that the Shi’ites are on top, Iran is doing its best to weaken the Kurdish wing in parliament. Bomb attacks up here are an ideal distraction." said a Kurdish official.

At least 85 persons have died and hundreds have been injured in three attacks over the past two months. An attack that killed the security chief and four others in the northeastern town of Halabja in June was the first of its kind in Sulaymaniyah province since the fall of Baghdad.

Hours earlier, an explosion killed 20 military recruits in the Kurdish capital of Irbil.

A man calling himself Molla Abbas took responsibility for both attacks. "Our campaign will escalate," he said in a phone call to the independent Kurdish weekly Hawlati.

The name is familiar to Kurdish intelligence officials. Abbas was a senior member of Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda-linked Kurdish group that controlled the mountains around Halabja until March 2003, when it was scattered by a joint U.S.-Kurdish operation.

Abbas now is thought to be based in Kirkuk. What worries Kurdish officials, though, is that many of his former colleagues are living untroubled on the other side of the Iranian border.

"Ansar is now based in Iran," said one senior Kurdish intelligence officer. The attacks "could not have happened without Iranian support."

[Wiz]

ping

[Wiz]

Iran news ping

[in hoc signo vinces]

Wow...that's a shocker!

[CAP811]

Gee who woulda thought?

[M. Espinola]

For the security of our troops, other Coalition members 7 the Iraqi people attempting to rebuild their nation, the mullahs of Iran must be toppled from power and prior to that nest of rats gaining nuclear weaponry.