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Iraq protests US capture of Iranian
officials
25.12.2006
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BAGHDAD, December
25, -- The Iraqi government has protested after US
forces arrested a number of Iranian officials in
Baghdad, allegedly because they were planning to
incite attacks in the already war-torn country.
"Two people who were invited by the president to
Iraq have now been apprehended by the Americans, and
the president is unhappy with the arrests," Hiwa
Osman, President Jalal Talabani's media adviser,
told AFP Monday.
"The invitation was within the framework of an
agreement between Iran and Iraq to improve the
security situation," he added.
Separately, a leading Shiite lawmaker and imam,
Sheikh Jalal Eddin al-Saghir of the Baratha Mosque,
told AFP that two Iranian diplomats had also been
seized by US forces in Baghdad on Thursday last
week, but were later released.
"Two diplomats from the Iranian embassy came to see
me at the mosque to offer condolences on the death
of my mother," he said. |
Iraqi
President : Jalal Talabani, a Kurd |
"After they left the mosque and were travelling back
to the embassy they were arrested by the Americans,
with two of their guards. I don't know why. I later
heard that they'd been released," he said.
Confirmation of the arrests came after the New York
Times, citing senior US officials, reported that
several Iranians were arrested by US forces in Iraq
last week on suspicion of planning attacks on Iraqi
troops.
"We continue to work with the government of Iraq on
the status of the detainees," Gordon Johndroe, a
spokesman for the US National Security Council, told
the New York Times, according to its report.
Iraq's national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie
refused AFP requests for comment on the arrests,
which the Times reported had put strain on the
relationship between the Iraqi government and its
American allies.
A spokesman for the US embassy in Baghdad also
declined to comment, while the US-led military
coalition referred inquiries to the Pentagon.
US commanders in Iraq regularly accuse Iran of
fomenting unrest in its troubled neighbour, but the
Shiite-led Baghdad government has insisted on
pursuing a policy of closer security ties with
Tehran.
According to White House officials cited in the
Times report, the Iranians include two "senior
military officials" with links to an Iranian
Republican Guard unit which trains Lebanon's Shiite
Hezbollah guerrilla movement.
Senior US officials told the Times that four
Iranians are in US custody.
If United States authorities produce evidence
against the detainees it could be the first proof of
their longstanding charge that Iranian agents are
stirring violence in Iraq by arming and training
illegal militias.
The arrests come amid mounting diplomatic tension
between Iran, the US and the international
community, after the UN Security Council voted to
impose sanctions on Iran's nuclear programme.
In response to the vote, Iran defiantly vowed to
start work immediately on drastically expanding its
capacity to enrich uranium.
Washington accuses Iran of seeking to develop a
nuclear weapon, a charge vehemently denied by the
oil-rich Islamic republic, which says it only wants
to provide atomic energy to a growing population.
Tehran has yet to make any public comment on the
Baghdad arrests.
Several of the Shiite parties that have risen to
power in Iraq since the downfall of former dictator
Saddam Hussein have ties to Iran.
Shiite cleric Abdel Aziz Hakim's Supreme Council for
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) was founded
by Tehran to mobilise Iraqi exiles against their own
government during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Today SCIRI is an important part of Iraqi Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition.
According to the New York Times report, some of the
Iranians were arrested at the home of Hadi al-Ameri,
a senior SCIRI official and lawmaker. Ameri denied
this, however, describing the report as "lies".
AFP
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