Newsweek: The Iranian Special Operations Quds Force as close to US allies as American enemies

Is Iranian special ops force aligned with US allies in Iraq?

RAW STORYPublished: Sunday February 18, 2007

The Bush administration has accused the Iranian Special Operations unit known as the Quds Force of harming US soldiers in Iraq, though they admit that they don't know why or at whose direction the Iranian force is operating within the country. But the real issue, reports Newsweek, is that the Quds Force appears to be working in collusion with US allies in Iraq as much as with US enemies.

The unit appears to be as close to America's Shiite and Kurdish allies as to splinter groups accused of killing perhaps 170 of the more than 3,000 American soldiers who've died in Iraq," says Newsweek.

According to Newsweek, there is a relationship between the Quds Force and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and between the force and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Both of those leaders have recently spent time at the White House, but their involvement with the Quds Force goes back decades. "Quds operatives captured recently were working directly under the protection, respectively, of Talabani and Hakim," reports the article.

US commanders are worried about the growing threat of Iranian arms in Iraq, says Newsweek. Though the Quds Force has not been specifically linked to any attacks in Iraq, the recent spate of US helicopters being shot down is worrisome, as is the increasingly more common appearance of "explosively formed penetrators" which Newsweek reports that the Quds Force "allegedly helped design and supply to some Shiite factions in Iraq." However, skeptics worry that the Bush administration is just trying to "provoke a fight with Iran," says the article.

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