[Sunday Telegraph-UK] Philip Sherwell - President George W Bush has ordered U.S. forces to launch a military offensive against Iranian officials and Revolutionary Guards officers behind a support and funding network for anti-American fighters in Iraq. Bush signed the clandestine directive after he was given new intelligence on the scale of Iranian operations to foment violence in Iraq. Alireza Jafarzadeh, the Iranian exile leader who first revealed Teheran's secret nuclear program, has compiled a dossier detailing the vast network run by the Revolutionary Guards' Quds (Jerusalem) Force in Iraq. Its operations are centered on Basra and Najaf, and use a series of supposed religious and cultural organizations as well as diplomatic consulates across the country to develop, fund and arm militia and rebel groups. Thousands of Shia militiamen have reportedly traveled to Iran for training and indoctrination, while Quds sends millions of dollars cash in the other direction each month, through diplomatic pouches and border crossings it controls. Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state, said Saturday: "I don't think there is a government in the world that would sit by and let the Iranians, in particular, run networks inside Iraq that are building explosive devices of a very high quality, that are being used to kill their soldiers."
2007-01-15 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive