On the evening of Jan. 20, 2007, U.S. soldiers serving in the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, Iraq, were attacked by an Iranian-backed terrorist squad.
The raid was carried out with precision. One U.S. soldier was killed in the firefight and four others were captured. The attackers fled the base, and with police in hot pursuit, the kidnappers decided to execute the hostages and abandon their vehicles.
Three of the U.S. soldiers were found dead in neighboring Babil; the fourth was wounded and died before he could receive proper treatment.
The Pentagon suspected Iran was ultimately responsible for the attack. The Quds Force, Iran’s special operations branch was a natural suspect. The Quds Force’s specialty is proxy warfare.
The attack was so meticulously planned because a terrorist named Qais al-Khazali was behind it.
A cleric and adviser to Moktada al-Sadr, Khazali ran the Khazali Network, an Iranian-baked radical Shia terror group later known as the Asaib al Haq or the League of the Righteous.
During a raid in Basra in March 2007, U.S. forces captured Khazali, his brother Laith (also a leader of the Khazali Network), and Ali Mussa Daqduq. Daqduq was a senior Hezbollah operative who was tasked by Iran to organize Shia terror groups along the same lines as Hezbollah.
The March raid provided a trove of information on the Shia terror groups and Iran’s involvement in the Iraqi insurgency.
Despite the severity of the attacks and Qais Khazali’s known links to Iran’s intelligence services, he was nonetheless released from U.S. custody in late December, at the same time that the League of the Righteous released Peter Moore, a British contractor.
Moore and four bodyguards had been kidnapped in 2007 in another well-planned raid, this time at the finance ministry in Baghdad. Immediately after, the League of the Righteous demanded the release of Qais, Laith, and other members of the group in exchange for their hostages.
The United States eventually buckled under pressure from Britain. The process to free Qais began last summer, when Laith and more than 100 members of the League of the Righteous were released.
In exchange, the Shia terror group turned over the remains of three of the bodyguards in their custody. All three had been shot. The fourth bodyguard, who has yet to be released, is also thought to be dead.
The U.S. military has denied that a deal was cut with the Shia terror group and insists the release of Qais, Laith, and others to the Iraqi government was part of the “reconciliation process.” But U.S. military and intelligence officers I have spoken with disagree and say that Qais Khazali’s release was indeed part of a bargain to free the British hostages.
Qais Khazali and his ilk do not represent any legitimate Iraqi interests that can be “reconciled” and folded back into society. Their organization represents Iran, for whom they sow chaos and murder.
Two important questions: First, why would the United States release dangerous terrorists who are directly linked to Iran’s Quds Force and who can threaten the recent security gains in Iraq?
Second, did the Obama administration violate a long-standing executive order, put in place by President Reagan, that prevents negotiations with hostage takers and terrorists? Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., put this very question to President Obama in a July 2009 letter after Laith Khazali was released.
The administration has yet to respond. But now we must wonder, once again, if this same executive order has been violated in the case of Qais Khazali.
Bill Roggio is managing editor of the Web site LongWarJournal.org and adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
