| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| US says Iran agent detained in Iraq |
| 2007-09-20 |
| The US military said it arrested an Iranian agent in northern Iraq on Thursday, as a senior American commander said the country was emerging from the most violent phase of the war. The commander told reporters that violence across Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since early 2006. US troops raided a hotel in the majority Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, a military statement said, and detained an Iranian it said was a member of the Quds Force, the covert operations arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. He was the latest Iranian national to be detained in Iraq by the US military, which accuses Iran of helping fund and arm Shiite militia groups in the country's bloody sectarian conflict. "Contrary to recent diplomatic initiatives, this individual has been involved in transporting improvised explosive devices and explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) into Iraq," the US statement said. EFPs, which when they explode emit a white-hot slug of molten copper that can cut through the armoured skins of US military vehicles, have been blamed for the deaths of at least 200 US service personnel since May 2004. "Intelligence reports also indicate he was involved in the infiltration and training of foreign terrorists in Iraq," the statement said. A Kurdish regional government official earlier told AFP that an Iranian businessman was detained by US forces in a pre-dawn swoop at the Sulaimaniyah Palace hotel. The spokesman, Jamal Abdullah, identified the man only as Farhadi and said he was a member of an Iranian commercial delegation which has been visiting Sulaimaniyah from the Iranian province of Kermanshah for the past two days. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Enough is enough, already. Faster, please! |
| Posted by: doc 2007-09-20 14:09 |