Iran’s special operations agents have increased their numbers in Iraq during the past two years to the point where they are a vital part of Shiite insurgent cells that attack rival Sunnis and American troops, according former and current U.S. officials.
The agents are members of al-Quds, the terrorist-training arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Their role is to basically to interact with terrorists’ groups,” said Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon official who tracked global weapons proliferation, including shipments to and from Iran.
It was former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a March 2006 news conference who first announced al–Quds’ presence in Iraq. At the time, the intelligence reporting was spotty.
Today, however, a military source says there are hundreds of al-Quds operatives in Iraq, after beginning operations with only a few dozen. The source, who asked not to be named, said al-Quds have shown the Shiites how to position and hide the bombs along roads to get the largest explosive impact.
CIA Director Michael Hayden talked of the shift in the agency’s view of Iran during testimony to Congress Jan. 18.
“If you step back and look at Iranian activity in Iraq, there was a period of time there when I personally, and I think many analysts, would put a less hostile face on it than we would today,” Hayden said. “I’ve come to a much darker interpretation of Iranian actions in the past 12 to 18 months.”
The proof came in slowly. But a big break for the U.S. came in December with the capture in Iraq of Brig. Gen. Mohsen Chirazi, al-Quds’ No. 3 ranking officer.
While the Revolutionary Guard enforces clerical rule at home, it designed al-Quds forces to support terrorism operations abroad and to collect intelligence. Agents went to Lebanon in the 1980s to establish Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terror group. A U.S. special operations source said al-Quds agents have been identified in Europe, as well.
The al-Quds brigades became a key issue in Washington this month. The U.S. command in Baghdad released a white paper on their covert activities, and President Bush followed up with a statement saying there is hard proof al-Quds people have killed Americans.
The intelligence hand–wringing today is over who ordered al-Quds into Iraq. Gen. Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs chairman, has said the U.S. lacks proof that Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the supreme ruler, Ali Khamenei, personally ordered the agents into Iraq.
But according to Maloof, the Revolutionary Guard would never freelance. Any place al–Quds forces go is approved by Khamenei himself.
“They don’t take their orders from the president. They take it from Khamenei,” he said. “We had information for years that al-Quds are under the influence and control of the supreme leader.”
