Iran continues to aid Iraq militias, US says

Military cites dramatic drop in arms supply
By Ross Colvin, Reuters | January 21, 2008

BAGHDAD - The US military said yesterday there had been a dramatic drop in the number of Iranian weapons being used in Iraq, but Tehran has not stopped training and financing Iraqi militias.

Washington has accused Tehran of supplying Shi'ite militias in Iraq with sophisticated weapons, including deadly armor-piercing bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, to attack American troops. Tehran denies the charge.

"We do believe that the number of signature weapons that have come from Iran and have been used against coalition and Iraqi security forces are down dramatically," Rear Admiral Greg Smith, a US military spokesman, said. "We do not think levels of training have been reduced at all. We don't believe levels of financing are reduced."

US officials had softened their rhetoric toward Iran in recent weeks, partly attributing a sharp drop in violence in Iraq since June to Iran stemming the flow of smuggled weapons. US forces also released a number of Iranian detainees. Smith said there was an upswing in the number of attacks using explosively formed penetrators reported in the first two weeks of January. "There was an increase, we don't know why precisely . . . and now they have returned to normal levels," he said.

US and Iranian officials were scheduled to meet in mid-December for a fourth round of talks on quelling violence in Iraq. The meeting was canceled because of time constraints on US diplomats as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Iraq.

Ali al-Dabbagh, Iraqi government spokesman, said no new date had been set for the meeting. Smith said Iran continued to exert a "negative influence" in Iraq, with militia groups still being trained inside the Islamic republic late last year, after Tehran had made a pledge to the Iraqi government to support efforts to end violence. Many of those in the militia being trained in Iran are considered renegade members of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Sadr has ordered a six-month cease-fire that expires in late February so that he can reorganize his group .

US military officials say the Mahdi Army has been replaced by Al Qaeda as the greatest threat to peace in Iraq, and has launched a major offensive against the Sunni Islamist group in four northern provinces and Baghdad's southern outskirts. Smith said 121 militants had been killed, including 92 "high-value targets," since the operation began Jan. 8. In an attack yesterday, a suicide bomber killed six people in western Anbar Province, including a member of a Sunni Arab tribe involved in fighting the militant group, officials said.