A ranking Iraqi military intelligence official said Saturday Hezbollah's slain Imad Mughniyeh was a co-founder of the Mehdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr and had recruited followers in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi daily al-Zaman quoted the unnamed official as saying Mughniyeh supervised travel of the Mehdi Army Militia's primary cells to Lebanon for training at Hezbollah bases in the Bekaa valley, a few weeks after collapse of the Saddam regime in 2003.
The 300 fighters were trained on the use of assault rifles, booby-trapping and kidnapping operations, the report added.
Mughniyeh also recruited fighters for the Mehdi Army militia in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that were directed to Lebanon for training at Hezbollah bases under the supervision of an Iranian Intelligence official identified as Qassem Suleimani, the report said. Mughniyeh, the Iraqi official said, had also sponsored the so-called ThaÂ’arullah (God's Revenge) underground group operating in the southern Iraqi province of Basra.
The group, according to reliable sources, is in charge of supervising activities of the so-called Kuwaiti Hezbollah that surfaced after the Mughniyeh assassination.
The United States has accused Hezbollah on several occasions of involvement with the Iraq Mehdi army , but Hezbollah has maintained that it is strictly a Lebanese resistance movement . This new revelation in Iraq could raise many questions about HezbollahÂ’s involvement outside the Lebanese borders . Yesterday the Iraq Mehdi army extended its truce for another six months.
Mughniyeh was assassinated in Damascus, Syria last week and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of being behind his murder, but Israel denied any involvement . Yesterday General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards accused an Arab country of being involved in the murder of Mughniyeh , but did not name the country.