Iran arming death squads? These guys are playing with fire that may make regime change look very attractive in Iran esp. if U.S. troops are able to drawdown this summer in Iraq. Quite the recipe.
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U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories. According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.
This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. “There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval,” says a senior official.
Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq’s growing Shia militias from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.
Evidence is mounting, too, that the most powerful militia in Iraq, Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army, is receiving training support from the Iranian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki told ABC News today that he is moving to disarm militias in Iraq, and expects his forces to be ready to take over from the U.S. command in June, 2007.
"I can say that Iraqi forces will be ready, fully ready, to receive this command and to command its own forces, and I can tell you that by next June our forces will be ready,"
Maliki and Gibson spoke after the prime minister met with President Bush in an effort to devise a plan to halt the increasing sectarian violence in Iraq.
Maliki said his government will increase training of Iraqi troops in January, and that no sectarian militias — including the one aligned with Moqtada al-Sad — would be tolerated. "My position is clear. I reject and refuse any militia within the state," he told ABC News.
"Are you saying to me that the al-Sadr brigades should be disarmed and you will set about to do that?"
"Definitely. And the government is doing that with all militias, with no exception. There will be only the arms for government troops," he said.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2689737