|
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 after the start of the U.S.-led 2001 war
to oust the Taliban and destroy Osama bin Laden'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.
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.
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,
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.
Copyright © 2004 Associated Press. All rights
reserved
Top |
®