Word: iranian
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...officials at the briefing (who declined to be named but who included an intelligence analyst and an explosives expert) were at pains to distance themselves from what one called the "tremendous hype" in Washington - an apparent reference to recent U.S. claims of Iranian involvement in Iraq, which some fear might be a prelude to aggressive action against Tehran. The briefing occurred in the context of increased American pressure on the Iranian government. And the Bush Administration has claimed that the strife in Iraq since the summer of 2003 can be laid largely at the feet of foreign actors - from Arab...
...intelligence analyst at the briefing said that the EFPs came from the IRGC and that the IRGC reports directly to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But the Iranian government is notoriously factionalized, and drawing conclusions about Iranian intentions based on Iranian operations in Iraq isn't so simple. It's been clear for years that the Iranians are exerting influence in Iraq; the surprise would be if they weren't. Even after Sunday's briefing the nature and extent of Iranian military aid to Iraqi militants remains difficult to assess. "It's plausible deniability," the intelligence analyst explained...
...highly factionalized Iraq - within the government or associated with the country's dominant Shi'a political parties - were cooperating with Iran and using the imported EFPs. The intelligence analyst at the briefing said there was no involvement by the Iraqi government at any level. But as proof of Iranian meddling in Iraq the briefing cited a raid in which weapons, maps, inventory sheets and two Iranian agents were seized at the compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Hakim heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest party in Iraq's governing coalition...
...briefing sought to put the Iranian government, not the Iraqi government, front and center. But, even with slides showing an IRGC IED seized in last month's raid in Irbil, and with an explosives expert on hand to explain why EFPs and other munitions could only have come from Iran, demonstrating a definitive link was easier said than done. The Iranians, according to the intelligence analyst, use Iraqi smugglers to transport weapons across the Iran-Iraq border. However, it is still Iraqi militant groups, not the Iranians, who, in the end, use the weapons against U.S. forces...
...Meanwhile, Iraq's largest Shi'a party denied U.S. claims that two Iranian agents were seized at the home of the party's leader, Abdel-Azziz al-Hakim. Ridha Jawad Taki, a spokesman for Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRII), said the two were diplomats and were grabbed as they were on their way to the home of President Jalal Talabani, Hakim's neighbor. "They were invited by the President to discuss the security situation," he said. "And they were released after two days...