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U.S. general says Iran trains enemy

Elite Iranian fighters teach and arm Shiite militias from inside Iraq, he says.

By MEGAN GREENWELL, Washington Post
Published August 20, 2007

BAGHDAD - A senior U.S. general said Sunday that about 50 members of an elite Iranian military unit are training Shiite militias south of Baghdad, the first time the U.S. military has alleged that Iranians are aiding insurgents from inside Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commands U.S. operations south of Baghdad, said the men were sent by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - a military branch that the U.S. government has decided to label a "specially designated global terrorist" - to train Shiite insurgents in firing mortar rounds and rockets.

"They are facilitating training of Shiite extremists," Lynch told reporters. "We know they're here and we target them as well."

Iran's government has consistently denied any connection between the Revolutionary Guard Corps and insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq, and some military intelligence analysts have concluded there is no concrete evidence of such a link. But U.S. military leaders in Iraq have repeatedly maintained that Iran is providing money, weapons and training to so-called special cell militia groups, generally citing information gathered from interrogations.

Lynch said that the number of Iranian-made explosively formed penetrators - sophisticated roadside bombs built to puncture Humvees' armor - has increased in recent months.

Also Sunday

MORTAR ATTACK: Twelve people were killed by a barrage in east Baghdad, police said. Homes were destroyed, and at least 32 people were injured in the Shiite neighborhood of Obeidi.

FRENCH VISIT: French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner arrived in Baghdad on Sunday night on invitation from President Jalal Talabani. Kouchner said he came to listen. "This is an Iraqi problem and it must be solved by the Iraqis," he said.

Fast Facts:

Army strains to maintain troop level

Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring. The Army's 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by the Associated Press. That presents the Pentagon with several painful choices if the United States wants to maintain higher troop levels beyond the spring of 2008:

- Using National Guard units on an accelerated schedule.

- Breaking the military's pledge to keep soldiers in Iraq for no longer than 15 months.

- Breaching a commitment to give soldiers a full year at home before sending them back to war.

[Last modified August 20, 2007, 00:50:08]