BAGHDAD — Iran's leadership has ordered the production and transfer
of advanced improvised explosive devices and other weapons to insurgency
groups in Iraq, U.S. officials said.
U.S. officials said Iran has developed so-called explosively-formed
projectiles, tested by Hizbullah in Lebanon and then sent to Sunni and
Shi'ite insurgency groups in Iraq in 2006, Middle East Newsline reported.
An officer said the order came
from the Iranian leadership as part of a campaign to destabilize Iraq.
"Iran is involved in supplying explosively-formed projectiles or EFPs
and other material to Iraqi extremist groups," a senior official said.
[On Monday, about dozens were killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad.
The strike took place as the U.S. military reported achievements in its
counter-insurgency offensive conducted with Iraq's military and police in
the capital.]
EFPs, first seen in Iraq in 2004, have been able to penetrate the most
protected of U.S. armored vehicles, including the M1A2 main battle tank,
officials said. They said the EFP was comprised of tail fins from 81 mm and
60 mm mortars that fire molten copper into the undercarriage of U.S. combat
vehicles.
"The weapons had characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran,"
a U.S. officer, who could not be named, told a briefing on Sunday. "Iran is
the only country in the region that produces these weapons."
From June 2004 until February 2006, officials said, more than 170
Americans were killed by the EFPs. They said the bombs were produced in Iran
by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and smuggled into Iraq by the Mahdi
Army. The U.S. military was said to have found a cache of EFPs in 2005.
"We assess these activities are coming from the highest levels of the
Iranian government," the officer said. "The smoking gun of an Iranian
standing over an American with a gun — it's never going to happen."
Officials said components for the EFPs have been smuggled into Iraq from
the Iranian border city of Meran. They said EFP parts have also arrived in
the Basra area in southern Iraq.
At the news conference, U.S. officials displayed photographs of what
they said were Iranian weapons captured in Iraq. They included a Misagh-1
surface-to-air missile, EFPs and mortar shells, some of which contained
Iranian serial numbers. Iraqi insurgency groups were also believed to have
received the Russian-origin SA-7, SA-14 and SA-16 shoulder-fired
anti-aircraft systems.
"We know more than we can show," another official said.
Officials said a Shi'ite parliamentarian was alleged to have served as a
liasion for the smuggling of Iranian weapons into Iraq in cooperation with
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They identified the parliamentarian
as Jamal Jaafar Mohammed, said to have been connected to the IRGC's Quds
Force and believed to have fled to Iran.
The Quds Force was also said to have been training and equipping
Hizbullah in Lebanon. Officials said Quds reports directly to Iranian
supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and that its commander was one of six Iranians
captured by U.S. troops in Irbil in January 2007. The operational commander
was identified as Mohsin Chizari, later released under Iraqi government
pressure.
"The Quds Force arms extremists and insurgents to carry out terrorist
attacks and guerrilla warfare," the official said. "The Quds Force provides
advice, training and weapons to proxy forces in Iraq. We have been able to
determine that this material, especially on the EFP level, is coming from
the IRGC-Quds Force."
