Extremists Moving Across Iran-Iraq Border
Sun Nov 7, 3:13 PM ET
news.yahoo.com
By LOUIS MEIXLER, Associated Press Writer
ANKARA, Turkey - Islamic extremists have been moving supplies
and new recruits from Iran into Iraq , say Iraqi Kurdish
and Western officials, though it's unclear whether Tehran is covertly
backing them or whether militants are simply taking advantage of the
porous border.
Iranian involvement with extremist groups in
the Iraqi insurgency would be potentially
explosive, especially given the history of
U.S.-Iranian animosity. Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld said recently Iran was
engaged in "a lot of meddling" in Iraq but gave
no details.
Iran, which shares a mountainous 800-mile border with Iraq, has
confirmed that loyalists of the al-Qaida-linked Ansar al-Islam group
illegally entered Iran from Afghanistan (news - web sites) after the start of
the U.S.-led 2001 war to oust the Taliban and destroy Osama bin Laden
(news - web sites)'s terrorist training camps. But Iran's government has
repeatedly denied it is backing the radicals.
A handful of senior al-Qaida operatives who were among those fleeing to
Iran after the Afghanistan war may have developed a working relationship
with the Revolutionary Guards, a special military unit in Iran linked to
Tehran's hard-liners, U.S. counterterrorism officials have said.
The U.S. government report on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks also pointed
to contacts between Iranian security officials and senior al-Qaida figures
and found evidence that eight to 10 of the Sept. 11 hijackers passed
through Iranian territory. There was, however, no evidence the Iranians
knew that the hijackers were planning to attack the World Trade Center.
Iraqi officials have suggested privately that Iran, which is overwhelmingly
Shiite Muslim, is backing its Shiite brethren, who form a slight majority
in Iraq. One Iraqi official said more than 100 volunteer fighters have
entered this year from Iran into southern Iraq, where Iran may be trying to
use its influence within the dominant Shiite community there.
Iran might also support extremists from the rival Sunni branch of Islam -
such as al-Qaida or the group loyal to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi - to gain influence in the Sunni community, which is powerful
in central Iraq, and to destabilize U.S. efforts to control the country,
some analysts say.
Brig. Sarkout Hassan Jalal, director of security in Sulaimaniyah, the
largest city in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq near the Iranian border,
said that Islamic militants "are smuggling recruits to Iraq from Iran ...
(and) then take them to Fallujah or other hot spots."
He gave no figures for the number of people who are crossing but said
the number has fallen since Kurdish security forces boosted border
security in the past few months.
Another Kurdish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The
Associated Press that at the start of the year, dozens of militants were
crossing the mountainous, poorly patrolled border each week, but that
the number had fallen sharply in the past six months.
The official said that extremists who crossed the border often headed for
Mosul, the largest Arab Sunni Muslim city in the north and an area
where Islamic extremist groups are powerful. He said some of the
militants have repeatedly crossed back and forth, returning to Iraq with
better weapons, explosives and training.
The fall in the number of people crossing could be attributed to increased
Iraqi patrols or to the fact that foreign militants have recently built up
better infrastructure within Iraq and now find it easier to train fighters and
arm people within the country, the official said.
"There seems to be logistical and practical support," the official said.
"These people flee to Iran and come back days or weeks later with better
equipment."
Kurds living in mountainous villages near the border who have traveled
inside Iran to visit relatives said they have seen Arabs living in what
appeared to be safe houses in the Iranian border town of Mariwan.
Former Ansar prisoners held by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan - one
of two Kurdish militias that control the north - have backed up the claim
as have PUK intelligence officials.
A U.S. official said Kurdish security forces found passports from Arab
countries including Yemen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia buried under the dirt
floor in one safe house on the Iranian side of the border.
"We are not just talking about Iranians passively dealing with al-Qaida,"
one former U.S. official who worked in Iraq said, speaking on condition of
anonymity. "We are talking about al-Qaida at Revolutionary Guard bases
and safe houses. This is active assistance."
The Revolutionary Guards are the shock troops of
Iran's Islamic revolution, a well-funded force of 200,000
that answers to the country's Islamic leaders and not
the military.
Who could be assisting the militants is sharply
contested, however.
The Iranian leadership is deeply divided between
moderates and hard-liners.
Hard-liners and elements of the Revolutionary Guards
could be backing the insurgents with the Iranian
government turning a blind eye or unable to respond,
experts say. Many hard-liners are extremely fearful
that the United States, which now has some 140,000
troops in bordering Iraq, could try and destabilize Iran.
"There are forces in the Revolutionary Guards who are
very, very hard-line and who generally have their own
foreign policy and ... are almost never held accountable
for their actions," said Gary Sick, professor of
international affairs at Columbia University and a
former adviser to the U.S. National Security Council.
"There is very serious suspicion that members of the
Revolutionary Guard felt that they had something to
gain from these people who were seriously trying to stir
up trouble in Iraq."
Sick called it "extremely unlikely" that the Iranian
government itself would sponsor and actively promote
Sunni terrorist activities, though officials might want to
"keep an eye on the Sunnis." He also noted the matter
could simply be a border control problem.
"They have been trying for years to stop the trafficking
of drugs coming across the Afghan border with zero
success," Sick said.
In the past, Iran has been accused of backing Ansar
al-Islam, a militant fundamentalist Kurdish group that
opposed ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news
- web sites), as a way of destabilizing and pressuring
the secular Kurdish groups that controlled northern
Iraq.
Tehran, while confirming that Ansar elements might
have crossed its border illegally, has denied the
charges.
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of pro-Taliban fighters
possibly linked to al-Qaida left Afghanistan and made
their way to northern Iraq, where Ansar al-Islam
controlled an enclave on the Iranian-Iraqi border, U.S.
intelligence reports said. Al-Zarqawi, one of the most
feared terror leaders in Iraq, is believed to have had a
role in running Ansar al-Islam in 2002.
Al-Zarqawi, whose group has been responsible for car
bombings and beheadings, recently proclaimed his
loyalty to bin Laden in a statement released on the
internet.
U.S. forces attacked the Ansar al-Islam enclave at the
start of the war and many of the activists reportedly
fled, either into Iran or Sunni Muslim areas of Iraq,
where they eventually ended up in places like Fallujah,
a hotbed of violence.
Some experts doubt the Iranian government would risk
supporting an extremist anti-U.S. group in Iraq and
thereby provoking a reaction from Washington and
more instability on their border.
"By allowing al-Qaida to go about its business several
Iranian interests are served but it is an incredibly risky
card to play and Iran has at times been quite cautious
in Iraq," said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the
Saban Center at the Brookings Institution.
___
EDITORS: Associated Press writer Yahya Barazanji in
northern Iraq contributed to this report.
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