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| Iraq | |
| Hezbollah training Iraqi fighters: report | |
| 2008-05-05 | |
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Fighters from the Lebanon-based pro-Iranian Hezbollah group have been training Iraqi militia members at a camp near Tehran, The New York Times reported Monday.
Information gleaned from the questioning was given to the Iraqi government before Baghdad sent a delegation to Tehran last week to discuss allegations of Iranian aid to militia groups, the paper said. It is not known if the delegation confronted its Iranian hosts with the information, or how the Iranians responded, The Times noted. "We have experienced in the past that Iran interfered and has special groups in Iraq, but Iran also had evidence that they were participating in positive ways in security," Ali al-Dabbagh, a senior Iraqi government spokesman, was quoted in the report as saying. "We would like the Iranians to keep their commitment, the commitments they made in meetings with the prime minister and with other groups that have visited them," he said. "They had made the promise that Iran would be playing a supportive role." Militiamen mostly loyal to Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who according to his Najaf-based office is currently in Iran, have been battling US troops in Baghdad's Sadr City. Sadr's Mahdi Army militants have fought running streetbattles with US and Iraqi forces since late March in the district, killing hundreds of people. Mostly...them. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said: "I'm not sure where that story came from," adding: "I'm neither confirming nor denying any of the individual elements of it. He referred reporters to the multinational forces in Iraq. | |
| Posted by:tu3031 |