Iran, Hezbollah train Iraqi Shia "Secret Cells"

The Fourth Rail ^ | July 2, 2007 | Bill Roggio

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Ali Mussa Daqduq, a Hezbollah operative, captured among others

Iran's involvement in funding, arming and training the networks of Shia terrorist in Iraq has been an open secret in Iraq for years. The issue came to a head last winter when Coalition forces began heavily targeting the Iranian networks, and captured senior members of Iran's Qods Force in Baghdad in December 2006 and Irbil in January 2007. Iran struck back via its surrogates, the Qazali and Sheibani networks later in January of 2006, and struck at the Karbala Joint Provincial Coordination Center, kidnapping and killing five U.S. soldiers during the aborted operation. In a briefing from Iraq this afternoon, Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the spokesman for Multinational Forces Iraq, provided explicit detail on both Iran and Hezbollah's role behind the Shia terror networks and their involvement in the Karbala attack.

Killed/captured members of the Secret Cell / Special Group networks. Click to view.

Brig Gen Bergner identified 27 high level "Secret Cell" or "Special Group" leaders who have been “taken off the streets of Iraq.” Three were killed and 18 captured. Among those captured was Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Hezbollah operative. Daqduq has a pedigree with Lebanese Hezbollah, an Iranian created operation, and Iran's Qods Force. Daqduq is a 24 year veteran of Hezbollah, who has commanded both a Hezbollah special operations unit and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s security detail.

"In 2005, he was directed by senior Lebanese Hezbollah leadership to go to Iran and work with the Qods Force to train Iraqi extremists," said Brig Gen Bergner. "In May 2006, he traveled to Tehran with Yussef Hashim, a fellow Lebanese Hezbollah and head of their operations in Iraq. They met with the Commander and Deputy Commander of the Iranian Qods Force Special External Operations." Daqduq made four trips into Iraq in 2006, where he observed the "Special Groups" operations.

Daqduq's fake documents. Click to view.

Upon his return from Iraq, "he was tasked to organize the Special Groups in ways that mirrored how Hezbollah was organized in Lebanon," Brig Gen Bergner. Daqduq began to train Iraqis inside Iran. Groups of 20 to 60 recruits were trained in the use of Explosively Formed Penetrators, or EFPs, mortars, rockets, and sniper rifles, and instructed on how to conduct intelligence and kidnapping operations.

“These Special Groups are militia extremists, funded, trained and armed by external sources … specifically by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Qods Force operatives,” said Brig Gen Bergner. “In addition to training, the Qods force also supplies the Special Groups with weapons and funding of 750,000 to three million U.S. dollars a month. Without this support, these Special Groups would be hard pressed to conduct their operations in Iraq.”

Qayis and Layith Qazali. Click to view.

Brig Gen Bergner also explained that numerous documents, including a 22 page planning document, Daqduq's journal, and other items, along with the corroborated interrogations of Qayis and Layith Qazali (or Khazali) and other captured members of the Special Groups networks has detailed Qods Force's role in the Shia terror cells inside Iraq. "What we've learned from Ali Musa Daqduq, Qayis Qazali and other Special groups members in our custody expands our understanding of how Iranian Qods Force operatives are training, funding and arming the Iraqi Special Groups," said Brig Gen Bergner. "It shows how Iranian operative are using Lebanese surrogates to create Hezbollah like capabilities."

Brig Gen Bergner said three training camps for the "Special Groups" have been identified inside Iran. Last month, U.S. satellite reconnaissance identified a mockup of the Karbala PJCC inside Iran. This facility was used to train the Qazali network for the Karbala attack.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

but after playing deaf and dumb for a month to American intelligence, Dadouk has himself confirmed his status as a high-ranking member.

I wonder what methods were used to get Dadouk to stop playing deaf and dumb and start squawking like a magpie.
(Hint--whatever methods were used, virtually every democrat in Congress opposes.)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Right...

There is this:

Make Iran Feel the Pain
By Matthew Levitt
Wall Street Journal Europe, July 2, 2007

***********************************EXCERPT**************************************

The international community, led by the U.S. and the U.K., is now developing and debating new economic sanctions against Iran. This third round will be pivotal -- either by significantly increasing the cost to Iran of continuing to engage in illicit and dangerous activities, or by showing the regime that it can outlast whatever symbolic measures are levied against it without fear of being bled financially.

The first two rounds of targeted and graduated sanctions have failed to change Iran's nuclear calculus. Iran's chief nuclear negotiator continues to meet with senior EU officials, most likely to buy time, while Tehran refuses to accede to demands that it freeze its uranium enrichment program.

U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747, passed last December and March respectively, signaled seriousness about using financial measures against Iran. The first declared an international consensus to sanction Iran, and the second to target banks. In particular, Russian and Chinese support for these resolutions shocked Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran saw first-hand the weak U.N. pressure on Saddam Hussein and expected no worse treatment. Mr. Ahmadinejad reportedly predicted that neither Moscow nor Beijing would sign off on these resolutions. Their passage made the country's professional classes, which are proud of Iran's integration in the international system, feel the sting of diplomatic and economic isolation.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See #15 for why they oppose .....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the Blogosphere ( Strat-Sphere):

Iranian Clerics Being Assassinated, Pressure On Iranian Rulers

**********************************EXCERPT********************************

Is the pressure in Iran about to boil over and destroy the Islamo-Fascists?

THE assassination of a prominent cleric in an oil-rich Iranian province, coinciding with violent protests in Tehran over the rationing of petrol, has plunged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into his biggest crisis since he was elected two years ago.
The murder on June 24 of Hesham Saymary in Ahvaz, the centre of Iran’s oil-producing province in the south, was a blow to a regime that is already under pressure because of international condemnation of its nuclear program and the prospect of economic meltdown.

The assassination, the third of a senior cleric this year, bore the hallmarks of a well-planned murder.....................

****************************snip**********************************

It is clear why Iran and Venezuela are talking. Both have restive populations, large oil reserves and busted economies. Iran may very well be hitting a tipping point of its own.

Posted by AJStrata on Sunday, July 1st, 2007 at 3:05 pm.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

So, basically, Iran is killing our soldiers, training others to kill our soldiers, providing weapons to kill our soldiers, and, oh yeah, developing a nuclear weapon which just might be able to kill a whole bunch of our soldiers. And our reply is to (unsuccessfully) make Iran an international pariah.

Call me crazy, but I think that the proper response to the above provocations should be for us to kill their soldiers, train others to kill their soldiers, provide weapons to kill their soldiers, and, since we already have a nuclear weapon, threaten to use it to kill a whole bunch of their soldiers. Of course, we’d need to have a president like Reagan so the mullahs would know we just might not be bluffing.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well....there is stuff going on....see #24....

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Well....there is stuff going on....see #24....

It's a start, anyway. Thanks for your excellent research.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This from IBD and Michael Ramirez says it all:

***************************************************

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Added some Toon’s....

[kellynla]

Is Michael Ramirez the best or what!!!

He used to be the only reason I ever checked out the Op-Ed page of the LAT Online...
now, thankfully, I have absolutely no reason to go there at all. LOL

[SevenMinusOne]

Real difficult situation. Reality is we are starting to gain real traction in this third phase of the WOT inside Iraq. Phase one was to remove the Saddam regime. Phase two was seeing a new form of Gov't established....and Phase three (which has been more difficult /complex then expected) is seeing this new Gov't being full implemented with the ability to defend and govern itself.

We are seeing real progress in this third phase (have been for the past 6-8 months). During such time period Iranian influence has continued (and even increased some most likely).

Do we try to keep this continued traction / success we are seeing currently on the ground in Iraq....and fight simply a shadow war with these Iranian elements (while trying to get Iraq to the stage we need)?....Or do we risk perhaps a new phase (and more overtly chaotic, especially in the PR aspect of this WOT) by beginning an over shooting war with Iran.

Tremendously complicated (to a point). Whichever we choose will be second guessed 24/7 as completely wrong during....

And take into consideration that it may be Mil HQs who have had the most reservations / restrictions about wanting an overt shooting war with Iran....more so then the WH.

[SandRat]

Intel the Media won’t tell you.

[Marine_Uncle]

Well the good news, I guess, is that we continue to find these pricks and squeeze out info from them, then go after their networks, within the Iraq borders.
Perhaps Putin will leave Maine with the understanding he has to inform Iran, Russian cannot back them up if CENTCOM is given the thumbs up to take them out. But then as usual we have to consider the mad Mullahs who wait with delusion of the mystical bozo poppping out of the well, don't give a *hit.
They must really think they are winners any way the coin is tossed.

[Marine_Uncle]

The roaches have traveled further then the map indicates.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks E.

[SunkenCiv]

Great idea, Grampa Dave:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1859675/posts?page=13#13

Thanks E for the pings.

[SunkenCiv]

Strategic Policy Consulting confirmed a two year old report by the British Ahwazi Friendship Society that Iran was using the "Arab populated city of Ahwaz, southwestern Iran, as a base of operations." The city of Ahwaz is in Khuzestan province, which borders the southern Iraqi province of Basra.

Sounds like a good place for a MOAB.

[NormsRevenge]

.

A U.S. military explosives expert displays explosives used by Iraqi militants, including the 'EFP' armour-penetrating roadside bomb (far L), in the Green Zone in Baghdad July 2, 2007. Senior Iranian leaders know about the operations of Iran's Qods Force in fomenting violence in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Monday, in some of the most direct accusations yet against Tehran over the chaos in Iraq. (Chris Hondros/Wathiq Khuzaie/Pool/Reuters)