In a piece for the Wall Street Journal last year, AEI scholar and WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Michael Rubin argued that Iran was trying to turn Iraq into a new Lebanon. Rubin explained:
On Sunday, CNN reported new evidence that supports Rubin’s thesis. U.S. officials have captured Ali Mussa Daqduq, a 24-year veteran of Hezbollah who reportedly specializes in IED’s, in Iraq. Anonymous U.S. Intelligence officials told CNN that Daqduq “was captured in March in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, where he was helping train and lead Shiite militias fighting coalition troops.” When Daqduq was captured he apparently pretended to be deaf and mute, but eventually he started coughing up the details of his activities in Iraq. According to CNN, he admitted to working on behalf of the Iranian government, and intelligence officials believe he “played a crucial role” in the murder of five Americans in Karbala in January. As Bill Roggio previously noted, the U.S. Government has been investigating the involvement of Iranian proxies in the Karbala attack. But the CNN report appears to be the first to directly connect a senior Hezbollah terrorist to the Karbala murders. (In fact, I believe this is the first time the U.S. has specifically accused Hezbollah, as opposed to Iran’s other terrorist proxies, of any direct involvement in Iraq.) CNN reports that Daqduq’s involvement in the Karbala raid was discovered after coalition forces detained Qais Khazali, a former spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr. “In searching for Khazali,” CNN reports, “U.S. and allied troops found computer documents detailing the planning, training and conduct of the failed kidnapping” in addition to stumbling upon Daqduq. The Associated Press reported additional details this morning. In addition to planning the Karbala operation, Brig. General Kevin J. Bergner says that Iran has been using Hezbollah to arm Shiite militias in Iraq. Bergner explained that Iran was using Hezbollah to organize terrorists “in ways that mirrored how Hezbollah was organized in Lebanon.” According to Bergner, Daqduq told interrogators that the Karbala raid–in which the terrorists posed as an American security team–“could not have conducted this complex operation without the support and direction of the Quds force.” (The Quds force is a long-time Iranian-controlled terrorist organization responsible for exporting the regime’s terror around the globe.) According to the AP, Bergner also said that Iran was taking teams of 20 to 60 Iraqis to training camps “not too far from Tehran” and when they return to Iraq these teams carry out bombings and kidnappings. Contrary to what some of the pundits and bureaucrats in Washington claim, Bergner said our “intelligence reveals that the senior leadership in Iran is aware of this activity.” That is, these aren’t “rogue” operations carried out without the permission of the Iranian regime. These latest reports provide further evidence that Michael Rubin was right: Iran is using its winning playbook from Lebanon in Iraq. The real question is: What will Washington’s response be?
