Iranian Detainees Linked To Attacks On US/Iraqi Targets

This seems like something someone should do something about:

The U.S. military says it has evidence linking a group of Iranians and some Iraqi associates, detained in raids last week, to attacks against U.S. forces. The military also said that some of those detained had been involved in shipments of weapons to groups in Iraq.

In its first official confirmation of the raids last week, the military said Tuesday that it had confiscated maps, videos, photographs and documents in a raid on a site in Baghdad. The military said that it had arrested five Iranians and that three of them had been released.

The Bush administration has described the two Iranians still being held as senior military officials. Major General William Caldwell, the spokesman for the U.S. command here, said in an e-mail that the military had "gathered specific intelligence from highly credible sources that linked individuals and locations with criminal activities against Iraqi civilians, security forces and coalition force personnel."

"Some of that specific intelligence," Caldwell said in the e-mail, "dealt explicitly with force-protection issues, including attacks on MNF-I forces." MNF-I stands for Multinational Force- Iraq, the official name of the U.S.-led foreign forces there.

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The Iraqi government has been silent about the arrests, but some officials spoke Tuesday night of intense behind- the-scenes talks by its political elite over how to handle the situation.

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Caldwell's statement indicated that the location itself was of central importance. The military gathered "specific intelligence from highly credible sources that linked individuals and locations with criminal activities," it said. The crimes were committed against Iraqi civilians, security forces and Americans.

The allegations, if true, would mark the first time since the U.S. invasion that Iranian officials were discovered in the act of planning military action inside Iraq. Tehran has denied the Iranians were doing anything illegal in Iraq.

Again, Iran relies on gasoline imports for its economy, having only a few native refineries, and those don't make enough gas. Take them all out, blockade them. We can afford to take the hit on oil prices. They can't afford to have their only source of foreign cash cut off, nor can they afford to have no gasoline whatsoever.

posted by Ace at 07:01 PM

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