Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Iraqi PM
Holds Secret Meeting In Tehran
Monday, Nov. 20,
2006
WASHINGTON -- Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari
was in Tehran on Friday, where he held secret meetings with Iranian
government officials, sources in Tehran told NewsMax.
Jaafari, the leader of Iraq's Islamic Dawa party, was elected
prime minister by Iraq's first freely elected parliament in April
2005 and remained in office until early 2006, when he was replaced by
his former deputy, Nouri al-Maliki.
During most of Saddam's reign, Jaafari and other Dawa party
leaders were based in Iran and funded by the Iranian regime.
Jaafari was met by Iranian intelligence officers while staying at
Tehran's Estaqlal hotel (the former Hilton), and taken in a motorcade
to meetings with government officials. Journalists were banned from
the hotel during his stay, NewsMax has learned.
Jaafari's visit to Tehran comes on the heels of a previously
unreported attack on the Iranian embassy in Baghdad.
At approximately 8:15 a.m. on Monday, November 13, a car bomb
exploded in front of the Iranian Embassy, which is located directly
across from the entrance to the heavily guarded International Zone in
central Baghdad, formerly known as the Green zone.
U.S. government sources in Baghdad confirmed the bombing, which
damaged dozens of cars but caused no fatalities, and speculated that
it might be retaliation by Sunni or other forces who oppose Iran's
deepening involvement in Iraq's internal affairs.
Triggering the bombing, they believed, was the recent trip to
Iran by the speaker of Iraq's National Assembly, Dr. Mahmoud
al-Mashadani, an outspoken opponent of Operation Iraqi Freedom and of
the U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Prime Minister al-Malaki owes his election to support from
Muqtada al-Sadr, whose faction has 30 members in Parliament.
The al-Sadr faction initially supported Jaafari to continue as
prime minister, but threw its support to Malaki when the vote
remained deadlocked.
While Malaki and Jaafari have kept their distance from Sadr in
public, behind the scenes they have called on Sadr's "Mahdi Militia"
(MM) as an "enforcing militia," informed sources in Baghdad said.
Sadr's forces have also been implicated in many of the attacks
against U.S. forces in Iraq.
Muqtada al-Sadr is related by marriage to former Iranian
president Mohammad Khatami, and has gone to Iran four times over the
past three years. He continues to receive $8 million to $10 million
per month from the Iranian regime, according to publicly available
estimates.
Mahdi militia members captured two months ago during sectarian
fighting near Khan Beni Saad, a predominantly Sunni area 20 miles
northeast of Baghdad on the road to Baquba, were carrying
Iranian-made 81mm mortars.
The old Iraqi army, whose arsenals were looted and have been used by
Sunni insurgents, used 82 mm mortars, which are incompatible with the
Iranian weapons.
Photographs obtained by NewsMax showed that the militiamen had
been equipped with an electronic mapping and targeting device bearing
the stamp of the Iranian Defense Industries Organization -
Electronics and Communications Industries Group.
An instruction manual for the device bore the same
markings.
Malaki and Jaafari also have close ties to the Supreme Council of the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Badr brigade, the
Iranian-backed militia that controls much of southern Iraq.
The Badr brigade crossed into Iraq from Iran during the chaotic
days following the U.S. liberation of Baghdad. The United States
military was aware of the Badr brigade movement into Iraq, but did
nothing to stop it.
Over the past two years, the Badr brigade has refrained from
attacks on U.S. troops. Instead, it has spearheaded an Iranian
government effort to assassinate former Iraqi army officers who were
involved in the 1980-1988 war with Iran.
"Badr brigade has been given a list of former Iraqi generals by
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and they are systematically
tracking down and assassinating the individuals on that list," a
well-informed Western source in Baghdad told NewsMax.
Many former Iraqi generals have fled the country and taken
refuge in other Arab countries or in Europe.
Late last year, Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps began
supplying the Badr brigade with a new type of armor piercing shaped
charge that has been used by insurgents in attacks against U.S.
troops and armored vehicles.
The Iranian-made shaped charges are so powerful they have
ripped through the armor of M1-A2 Abrams tanks, sources in Baghdad
told NewsMax.
The U.S. military intercepted a large shipment of explosives
from Iran in August 2005, including "dozens of shaped charges
manufactured recently," NBC News reported at the time.
U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzhad, told the Washington Times
in May that Iran "has ties to extremists, including some militias. It
supports some of these extremist groups and militias with arms,
including the deadly EFP technology," a reference to explosively
formed projectiles, or shaped charges.
The Iranian regime has been cooperating with Sunni insurgents
as well, Khalilzhad said. He specifically identified a group known as
Ansar al-Sunnah, which is tied to al Qaeda, and which operates in
northern Iraq along the Iran border "It would be surprising that the
government did not know of their presence in northwest Iran and
coming across," he said.
Two former aids to Jaafari when he was still prime minister
showed up in Serbia earlier this week, seeking to buy medium and
heavy weapons, ostensibly for the new Iraqi army.
The two men presented letters to a top weapons manufacturer in
Serbia claiming they were top defense ministry officials with
procurement authority, "but neither of them have such positions in
the current government or contracting authority," knowledgeable
sources told NewsMax.