U.S. officials said Iran has allowed the smuggling of sophisticated
improvised explosive devices to Sunni insurgents in Iraq. The officials said
the bombs and components have been shipped via the northern and southern
borders with Iraq.
"It is true that weapons clearly, unambiguously from Iran have been
found in Iraq," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. "It's a
big border and unhelpful for Iranians to be allowing weapons those of types
to be
crossing the border."
Rumsfeld confirmed assertions by military commanders and other officials
that at least two shipments of advanced IEDs arrived in Iraq from Iran, Middle East Newsline reported. They
said these IEDs were used in a series of attacks by Sunni insurgents against
U.S.
armored forces in the Sunni Triangle in July.
Officials said the shaped-charge roadside bomb contained a projectile
designed to penetrate the belly of the armored vehicle. They said the U.S.
Army has also found an Iranian-origin IED meant to direct the blast up into
the targeted vehicle.
The Iranian IEDs were said to have been designed or produced with
assistance from the Beirut-based Hizbullah, sponsored by Teheran. But
officials said the bomb that destroyed a U.S. Marine Corps 27-ton amphibious
assault carrier in Haditha on Aug. 3 was not a shaped charge IED. Fourteen
U.S. soldiers were killed in the blast, which officials said stemmed from a
huge bomb.
Officials said the appearance of shaped charges represented a serious
threat to the military in Iraq. They said the shaped charge, which until
July 2005 was not employed by Iraqi insurgents, could penetrate the most
heavily-protected of U.S. armored vehicles.
"Iraqi border guards have seized several shipments of shaped charges and
components from Iran," the official said. "The assessment is that the
shipments were being arranged by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps."
The last shipment from Iran, the official said, was on July 20. He said
the delivery contained four bombs and resembled those used
by Hizbullah in southern Lebanon in the 1990s.
Iran was also said to have been helping Sunni insurgents manufacture
shaped charges in Iraq. Officials said at least one insurgency cell in
Baghdad has been attempting to manufacture these bombs.
"Clearly, improvised explosive devices, vehicle-borne improvised
explosive devices, some with newer technologies these days, are going to
change our tactics, techniques and procedures and some of the technology
that we'll bring to the fight," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said. "Obviously we're going to try to do that."