Archive for the 'Iraq' Category

Top al Qaeda leaders have been killed in Southern and Western Iraq.  Omar Faruq, expert bombmaker, was killed in Basra, and senior al Qaeda leader Khalid Mahal is reported to have been killed in al Anbar.

It has been a bonus week in Iraq.  Al Qaeda operative and expert bombmaker Omar Faruq has been killed in Basra.

BAGHDAD: British troops in Iraq said yesterday they had killed one of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s top global lieutenants, who escaped from a US prison in Afghanistan last year.

Omar Faruq was shot dead while resisting arrest yesterday during a pre-dawn raid by about 200 British troops in Iraq’s second biggest city, Basra, British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said.

US leaders have described Faruq as the top Al Qaeda operative in southeast Asia. He was caught in Indonesia in 2002 and held at a high-security detention centre at Bagram airbase north of the Afghan capital Kabul until his escape last year.

“The individual had been tracked across Iraq and was in hiding in Basra,” Burbridge said, calling him a “very, very significant man”.

In fact, the British and Iraqis attempted to arrest Faruq, but during the arrest fighting apparently ensued and he was killed.  He would have been a gold mine of information had they been able to effect the arrest.

In other news, Bill Roggio is blogging on senior al Qaeda leaders in the al Anbar Province having been killed:

BAGHDAD, Sept 26 (KUNA) — A joint Iraqi-US force killed Tuesday Al-Qaeda leader in Anbar and one of his aides in the western Iraqi area of Tharthar, said Iraqi state television (Iraqiya).

The television said the joint force killed Al-Qaeda’s Amir in Anbar, Khalid Mahal, and one of his aides, identified as Nasif Al-Mawla.

Iraq security forces had earlier announced over the past few days arrest of Ansar Al-Sunna group leader in Diyala.

Several observations:

In Comments on the Death of Umar Faruq at the Counterterrorism Blog, Kenneth Conboy states that:

“It has long been suspected that Faruq, who was born of Iraqi parents, would attempt to join the insurgency in Iraq. This speculation was supported by reports in recent months that his Indonesian wife had been receiving frequent cell phone calls from unidentified persons in Iraq. It is not known if these calls played a role in tracing his whereabouts.”

I would add that he was born of Iraqi parents in Kuwait, not Iraq.  This is interesting and I may be making too much of it, but it seems that southern Iraq is a dangerous place for al Qaeda.  With the influence of Iran in southern Iraq and their Shia surrogates, and based on the knowledge the police had of the whereabouts of Faruq, it would seem that if there is violence to be done in the Shia territories, the Shia will do it.  I would also add that it is obvious that Iraq is a magnet for this kind of terrorist, and so it continues to be true that the Iraq war is pivotal in the GWOT.

Bill Roggio says that “Task Force 145 … is conducting a full court press in Iraq.”  The reports don’t say yet who conducted the operation to kill Mahal, but Bill may know more about this than has been published in the press.  Either way, killing al Qaeda in al Anbar is a good thing and will help to pacify the troubled region (although like Faruq, I am sure that the coalition forces would have loved to have captured them for the intelligence value).

Finally, al Anbar will continue to be a dangerous place, and the Sunni insurgents will not give up the fight because al Qaeda continues to be targeted.  Killing top al Qaeda in Iraq is a positive move, but the Sunni who will not reconcile to the government, still believing that the Sunni should be running the country, will be problematic even in the absence of al Qaeda leaders.

Iran has designs on a regional Caliphate, and has positioned special operations forces in Iraq.  These troops, along with the Shia in Iraq, could pose more than just a theoretical threat later down the road.  If desired, they could cut or at least cripple the U.S. lines of supply in Iraq.

In Iran’s Iraq Strategy and Iran Muscles in on Iraq, as well as my posts in the Iran category, I outline what I believe to be Iran’s strategy for Iraq.  The peace cannot be won with al Qaeda by any amount of politics.  The same can be said for the Sunni diehards in al Anbar, as well as those Sunni fighters filtering into the Baghdad area.  I have long held that one key to the security of Baghdad is peace in the Sunni triangle.  If the peace was secured in the Sunni triangle, there would be few Sunni insurgents left to wreak violence in and around Baghdad.

The Shia militia are perhaps even more important than the Sunni or even al Qaeda, and whether peace can be won by political means is a salient question.  I hold that peace can be won with the Shia, but only if their power broker — Iran — has been muzzled.  The Shia in Iraq will seek peace and stability if they see Iran on the ropes, politically and militarily.

Leaving behind the question of the propriety of the war in Iraq for a moment and thinking critically about unintended consequences of our presence in Iraq, there is a sobering and statement in Time, July 24, 2006, by Joe Klein (The Iran Factor):

The U.S. “has been Iran’s very best friend,” a diplomat from a predominantly Sunni nation told me recently.  “You have eliminated its enemies, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.  You have even reduced yourselves as a threat to Iran because you have spent so much blood and treasure in Iraq.”

The Shia in Iraq are closely connected to Iran as I have pointed out in my posts, but there is very interesting and troubling assessment of Iranian and Iraqi Shia capabilities that was published on July 21, 2206, by Patrick Lang in the Christian Science Monitor, entitled The vulnerable line of supply to U.S. troops in Iraq.  In it, he observes:

American troops all over central and northern Iraq are supplied with fuel, food, and ammunition by truck convoy from a supply base hundreds of miles away in Kuwait. All but a small amount of our soldiers’ supplies come into the country over roads that pass through the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq.

Until now the Shiite Arabs of Iraq have been told by their leaders to leave American forces alone. But an escalation of tensions between Iran and the US could change that overnight. Moreover, the ever-increasing violence of the civil war in Iraq can change the alignment of forces there unexpectedly.

Southern Iraq is thoroughly infiltrated by Iranian special operations forces working with Shiite militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades. Hostilities between Iran and the United States or a change in attitude toward US forces on the part of the Baghdad government could quickly turn the supply roads into a “shooting gallery” 400 to 800 miles long.

At present, the convoys of trucks supplying our forces in Iraq are driven by civilians – either South Asians or Turks. If the route is indeed turned into a shooting gallery, these civilian truck drivers would not persist or would require a heavier escort by the US military.

It might then be necessary to “fight” the trucks through ambushes on the roads. This is a daunting possibility. Trucks loaded with supplies are defenseless against many armaments, such as rocket-propelled grenades, small arms, and improvised explosive devices. A long, linear target such as a convoy of trucks is very hard to defend against irregulars operating in and around their own towns.

The volume of “throughput” would probably be seriously lessened in such a situation. A reduction in supplies would inevitably affect operational capability. This might lead to a downward spiral of potential against the insurgents and the militias. This would be very dangerous for our forces.

Final victory in Iraq will be a function of the degree to which we muzzle Iran.  In the mean time, let’s hope that this assessment exaggerates the danger Iran poses, but I fear that it is spot on.  This is made darker still with the newfound respect the U.S. military has for the Iranian military.

Official Iraqi army hinders U.S. efforts due to commitment to tribes over Iraq nationalism.  Heavy reliance on proxy fighters is unwise and unproductive.

I have commented (negatively and disparagingly) on the tendency to rely too heavily on proxy fighters to accomplish U.S. mission objectives.  In the case of the tribal commitments in the al Anbar province, the concern will be that these troops do not have training, command and control, commitment to nationalism, or self-confidence.  It appears that in the Shia-controlled areas, some of the same problems exist, even among the offocial Iraqi army.

The plan was simple: Iraqi troops would block escape routes while U.S. soldiers searched for weapons house-by-house. But the Iraqi troops didn’t show up on time.

When they finally did appear, the Iraqis ignored U.S. orders and let dozens of cars pass through checkpoints in eastern Baghdad _ including an ambulance full of armed militiamen, American soldiers said in recent interviews.

It wasn’t an isolated incident, they added.

Senior U.S. commanders have hailed the performance of Iraqi troops in the crackdown on militias and insurgents in Baghdad. But some U.S. soldiers say the Iraqis serving alongside them are among the worst they’ve ever seen _ seeming more loyal to militias than the government.

That raises doubts whether the Iraqis can maintain order once the security operation is over and the Americans have left. It also raises broader questions about the training, reliability and loyalty of Iraqi troops _ who must be competent, U.S. officials say, before America can begin pulling out of Iraq.

Last week, for example, Sgt. 1st Class Eric Sheehan could barely contain his frustration when he discovered that barriers and concertina wire that were supposed to bolster defensive positions had been dragged away _ again _ under the noses of nearby Iraqi soldiers.

‘(I) suggest we fire these IAs and get them out of the way,’ Sheehan, of Jennerstown, Pa., reported to senior officers, referring to Iraqi army troops. ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ came the reply.

U.S. soldiers from the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment eventually blocked the road again while Iraqi troops watched from a distance.

Some Americans speculated the missing barriers were dragged off to strengthen militia defenses in nearby Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite neighborhood that is a stronghold of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

This may not be justification for turning back the hands of time and dismissing the Iraqi army, but it certainly warns against heavy reliance on the use of either the official Iraqi army or groups of tribal recruits in al Anbar to effect U.S. mission objectives.

The fact that the al Anbar tribes have made an agreement to align themselves with the government is a positive sign, but it will be a protracted period of time before these troops can be relied upon to conduct operations in a manner equivalent to the U.S. troops.

I have discussed the use of proxy fighters to accomplish mission objectives, as well as the pushback that the U.S. is getting from some of the al Anbar tribes to the pressure to take on al Qaeda and the Mujahideen themselves.  Concerning the al Anbar tribes and their pact to eject al Qaeda, the Strategy Page has this:

September 22, 2006: Coalition forces in Iraq have suddenly received the manpower equivalent of three light infantry divisions. They did not suffer any repercussions in domestic politics as a result, and now have a huge edge over al-Qaeda in al-Anbar province. How did this happen? Tribal leaders in the largely Sunni province on the Syrian border got together and signed an agreement to raise a tribal force of 30,000 fighters to take on foreign fighters and terrorists.

These leaders have thrown in with the central government in Baghdad. This is a decisive blow to al Qaeda, which has been desperately trying to fight off an Iraqi government that is getting stronger by the week. Not only are the 30,000 fighters going to provide more manpower, but these tribal fighters know the province much better than American troops – or the foreign fighters fighting for al Qaeda. Also, this represents just over 80 percent of the tribes in al-Anbar province now backing the government. 

The commentary goes on to cover some of the real benefits of these additional resources, such as indepth knowledge of the terrain (leading to an understanding of the best ambush sites that might be used by al Qaeda).  And while we can take this pact to be a victory for coalition forces, this assessment by the Strategy Page is without question overly optimistic.

It is certainly not the case that the coalition “suddenly received the manpower equivalent of three light infantry divisions,” even if you consider this manpower to be support troops rather than infantry or police.

I talked with an Army mother several days ago who has three boys under arms (one in Afghanistan, two in Iraq), and the perspective conveyed by her two sons in Iraq is one of a vast cultural difference between the U.S. forces and the Iraqis.  Of course there is, and we all know this, but it gets lost unless it is kept in the forefront of our thinking.

Regarding the missions, raids and other maneuvers that the U.S. troops go on along with the Iraqi troops, it is a frequent experience for the U.S. to go on a mission, work alongside the Iraqis, assess the results, go on another mission alongside the Iraqis, assess the results, etc., etc., until the assessment concludes that the Iraqis are ready to conduct the operations alone.  The Iraqis attempt to conduct the operation alone, and the force evaporates.  They lack self-confidence, have poor leadership, and simply have not been raised from childhood the same way U.S. boys were raised.

In the future I will comment more on this difference, focusing on the way American boys are raised.  But for now suffice it to say that al Anbar will lack proper government and control for some time.  The coalition didn’t gain three divisions.  They gained some recruits — really how many remains to be seen — who can work alongside the U.S. troops until they gain the confidence to do it themselves.  This will be a long process, and it may be longer if we rely too heavily on these proxy fighters.

The New York Times covered the fact that some of the tribes in the al Anbar Province are joining forces to fight the insurgents.  But not all tribal leaders are going along with this plan.  We also find out that the police believe that the U.S. pressure to fight the insurgents is beyond the scope of what they should be asked to do:

In Fallujah, police say residents have turned against them because of the collective-punishment tactics used by US forces. “The Americans started pushing us to fight the resistance, despite our contracts that clearly assigned us the duties of civil protection against normal crimes such as theft and tribal quarrels,” a police lieutenant said. “Now, 90% of the force has decided to quit rather than kill our brothers or get killed by them for the wishes of the Americans.” 

This sounds remarkably similar to ideas expressed in the Afghanistan war by fighters who were allegedly there to kill Taliban fighters.  Quoting from my post Afghanistan’s Lessons for Iraq: What Strategy?

Awol Gul was calm and relaxed as B-52s pummeled a mountain behind him and Al Qaeda sniper fire rang out in the distance. “They’ve been under quite a bit of pressure inside there,” he said. “It is likely that they have made a tactical withdrawal farther south. They have good roads, safe passage, and Mr. bin Laden has plenty of friends.

“We are not interested in killing the Arabs,” Mr. Gul went on to say. “They are our Muslim brothers.”

As I have pointed out, heavy reliance on proxy fighters to accomplish U.S. mission objectives can have unintended consequences, one of which is, in some cases, failure to achieve mission objectives.

If Afghanistan is the model for contemporary counterinsurgency operations, then the U.S. ought to rethink its strategy.  There is a role for both special operators and regulars in today’s warfare.  Cessation of regular operations too soon is counterproductive.

Bill Roggio is covering the fact that Pakistan has released more than 2500 al-Qaeda and Taliban, most of whom are heading to Waziristan.  Bill also covers the continuing operations in Afghanistan, stating that:

But the Afghan and Coalition efforts may merely be a holding action. Attempts to stabilize the provinces on the Pakistani border has been a difficult task as Taliban and al-Qaeda have used Pakistan’s Baluchistan and North West Frontier Provinces as bases of operations … The fighting in Afghanistan will only intensify.

Vital Perspective is reporting (from Jane’s Defence) that the Army and Marine Corps are putting the finishing touches on a new counter-insurgency manual that is designed to fill a crucial gap in U.S. military doctrine.  Afghanistan has lessons for our struggle in Iraq.  If this manual doesn’t mention and learn from our (at least partially) failed strategy in Afghanistan, then they should go back to the drawing board.

Much has been made about counterinsurgency warfare and the strategy the U.S. uses to attain peace and stability in Iraq.  The Washington Post recently published an article entitled In a Volatile Region of Iraq, U.S. Military Takes Two Paths.  In this article, the Staff Writer compares and contrasts two (allegedly) different approaches to securing peace and stability in the al Anbar province (the problems of which I have written on in my post Will We Lose the Anbar Province?).  I have also discussed the debate over force size and military footprint in my post The Debate Over Diminished Force Projection, which bears on the subject of force size and strategy and how various forces are utilized.

The Washington Post article is similar to those published previously, where the special forces operator is characterized as smart, patient, politically astute, and easily maleable and adaptable in new and challenging situations, while the non-special forces are depicted as dull, stolid, slow to adapt, and hopelessly educated and trained in the age-old military practices and stategy, much of which is too coarse and heavy-handed for the current situation in Iraq.  One is left to conclude that the regulars are knuckle-draggers.  It is an easy article to write — an easy story to tell.

The truth is neither of these depictions, and it is not somewhere in between.  The truth is more complicated.  As I have noted before from the U.S. Joint Forces Command’s Urban Resolve program:

In military operations since World War II, United States forces have preferred to bypass major urban areas to avoid the costly combat expected inside cities.

There is a huge difference between bypassing the troops (both regular and irregular such as the Fedayeen) on our advance to Baghdad, leaving the enemy behind, and killing the enemy if he can be identified and located, when he is identified and located.  The special forces might claim that the entire operation should have been a counterinsurgency operation, while the regulars might claim that we stopped conventional operations too soon, and much of the enemy was still intact when we switched over to counterinsurgency strategy.

There are those who are complaining that the regulars are not taking an approach that more closely resembles newer and more sophisticated counter-insurgency techniques.  But ironically, no one complains that the Afghanistan campaign was too “regular.”  In fact, it was nothing but irregular and Special Forces operations.  We primarily used the Northern Alliance to drive the Taliban from northern Afghanistan and Kabul, while we relied heavily on three tribal leaders / warlords, at least one of whom could not be trusted, to attempt closure with the enemy at Tora Bora.  The attitude of many of the fighters was in part responsible for the failure to close in on the enemy.  From the perspective of one fighter:

Awol Gul was calm and relaxed as B-52s pummeled a mountain behind him and Al Qaeda sniper fire rang out in the distance. “They’ve been under quite a bit of pressure inside there,” he said. “It is likely that they have made a tactical withdrawal farther south. They have good roads, safe passage, and Mr. bin Laden has plenty of friends.

“We are not interested in killing the Arabs,” Mr. Gul went on to say. “They are our Muslim brothers.”

We lost Osama bin Laden and hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Taliban fighters.  When the last cave was taken at Tora Bora:

On Dec. 16, Afghan warlords announced they had advanced into the last of the Tora Bora caves. One young commander fighting with 600 of his own troops alongside Ali and Ghamsharik, Haji Zahir, could not have been less pleased with the final prize. There were only 21 bedraggled Al Qaeda fighters who were taken prisoners. “No one told us to surround Tora Bora,” Mr. Zahir complained. “The only ones left inside for us were the stupid ones, the foolish and the weak.”

Today the Taliban and al Qaeda have control over Waziristan, have recently fought the Pakistani army to a draw, have seen 2500 of their fellow Taliban released, and have managed to inflict enough terror into Afghanistan that 267 schools have been forced to cease operations altogether.  If Afghanistan is the model for special operations, then we ought to rethink how we are conducting these operations.

There is a place for special operations, and certainly there is need always to adapt our techniques to the circumstances.  And with counterterrorist tactics being all the rage now, should I be bold enough to say that it is not the answer to all of our problems?

When we lose thousands of Taliban at Tora Bora, fighters are shooting at Marines and Soldiers in foxholes in Ramadi and U.S. forces will not hunt down and kill the enemy in response (while they also take bets as to when they will be attacked again), and no one in the chain of command can make a decision to kill 190 Taliban at a funeral because of “religious sensibilities,” may I suggest that we need to re-evaluate our strategy?  And to reflexively demur to special operations is easy, but not the answer. 

If Afghanistan is the model for contemporary counterinsurgency operations, then the U.S. ought to rethink its strategy.  There is a role for both special operators and regulars in today’s warfare.  Cessation of regular operations too soon is counterproductive.

Bill Roggio is covering the fact that Pakistan has released more than 2500 al-Qaeda and Taliban, most of whom are heading to Waziristan.  Bill also covers the continuing operations in Afghanistan, stating that:

But the Afghan and Coalition efforts may merely be a holding action. Attempts to stabilize the provinces on the Pakistani border has been a difficult task as Taliban and al-Qaeda have used Pakistan’s Baluchistan and North West Frontier Provinces as bases of operations … The fighting in Afghanistan will only intensify.

Vital Perspective is reporting (from Jane’s Defence) that the Army and Marine Corps are putting the finishing touches on a new counter-insurgency manual that is designed to fill a crucial gap in U.S. military doctrine.  Afghanistan has lessons for our struggle in Iraq.  If this manual doesn’t mention and learn from our (at least partially) failed strategy in Afghanistan, then they should go back to the drawing board.

Much has been made about counterinsurgency warfare and the strategy the U.S. uses to attain peace and stability in Iraq.  The Washington Post recently published an article entitled In a Volatile Region of Iraq, U.S. Military Takes Two Paths.  In this article, the Staff Writer compares and contrasts two (allegedly) different approaches to securing peace and stability in the al Anbar province (the problems of which I have written on in my post Will We Lose the Anbar Province?).  I have also discussed the debate over force size and military footprint in my post The Debate Over Diminished Force Projection, which bears on the subject of force size and strategy and how various forces are utilized.

The Washington Post article is similar to those published previously, where the special forces operator is characterized as smart, patient, politically astute, and easily maleable and adaptable in new and challenging situations, while the non-special forces are depicted as dull, stolid, slow to adapt, and hopelessly educated and trained in the age-old military practices and stategy, much of which is too coarse and heavy-handed for the current situation in Iraq.  One is left to conclude that the regulars are knuckle-draggers.  It is an easy article to write — an easy story to tell.

The truth is neither of these depictions, and it is not somewhere in between.  The truth is more complicated.  As I have noted before from the U.S. Joint Forces Command’s Urban Resolve program:

In military operations since World War II, United States forces have preferred to bypass major urban areas to avoid the costly combat expected inside cities.

There is a huge difference between bypassing the troops (both regular and irregular such as the Fedayeen) on our advance to Baghdad, leaving the enemy behind, and killing the enemy if he can be identified and located, when he is identified and located.  The special forces might claim that the entire operation should have been a counterinsurgency operation, while the regulars might claim that we stopped conventional operations too soon, and much of the enemy was still intact when we switched over to counterinsurgency strategy.

There are those who are complaining that the regulars are not taking an approach that more closely resembles newer and more sophisticated counter-insurgency techniques.  But ironically, no one complains that the Afghanistan campaign was too “regular.”  In fact, it was nothing but irregular and Special Forces operations.  We primarily used the Northern Alliance to drive the Taliban from northern Afghanistan and Kabul, while we relied heavily on three tribal leaders / warlords, at least one of whom could not be trusted, to attempt closure with the enemy at Tora Bora.  The attitude of many of the fighters was in part responsible for the failure to close in on the enemy.  From the perspective of one fighter:

Awol Gul was calm and relaxed as B-52s pummeled a mountain behind him and Al Qaeda sniper fire rang out in the distance. “They’ve been under quite a bit of pressure inside there,” he said. “It is likely that they have made a tactical withdrawal farther south. They have good roads, safe passage, and Mr. bin Laden has plenty of friends.

“We are not interested in killing the Arabs,” Mr. Gul went on to say. “They are our Muslim brothers.”

We lost Osama bin Laden and hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Taliban fighters.  When the last cave was taken at Tora Bora:

On Dec. 16, Afghan warlords announced they had advanced into the last of the Tora Bora caves. One young commander fighting with 600 of his own troops alongside Ali and Ghamsharik, Haji Zahir, could not have been less pleased with the final prize. There were only 21 bedraggled Al Qaeda fighters who were taken prisoners. “No one told us to surround Tora Bora,” Mr. Zahir complained. “The only ones left inside for us were the stupid ones, the foolish and the weak.”

Today the Taliban and al Qaeda have control over Waziristan, have recently fought the Pakistani army to a draw, have seen 2500 of their fellow Taliban released, and have managed to inflict enough terror into Afghanistan that 267 schools have been forced to cease operations altogether.  If Afghanistan is the model for special operations, then we ought to rethink how we are conducting these operations.

There is a place for special operations, and certainly there is need always to adapt our techniques to the circumstances.  And with counterterrorist tactics being all the rage now, should I be bold enough to say that it is not the answer to all of our problems?

When we lose thousands of Taliban at Tora Bora, fighters are shooting at Marines and Soldiers in foxholes in Ramadi and U.S. forces will not hunt down and kill the enemy in response (while they also take bets as to when they will be attacked again), and no one in the chain of command can make a decision to kill 190 Taliban at a funeral because of “religious sensibilities,” may I suggest that we need to re-evaluate our strategy?  And to reflexively demur to special operations is easy, but not the answer. 

Deadly and sinister IED technology perfected by Hezbollah with the help of Iran has made its way into Iraq, with the sole purpose, together with the presence of IRGC forces, of the destabilization of Iraq.  Iran sees itself at the center of a new Middle East Caliphate when U.S. troops depart. 

As I have discussed in previous posts, Iran has IRGC troops in Iraq, and has provided IED technology to Iraqi insurgents.  The most recent development in ordnance type and application in Iraq comes in the form of Hizbollah technology.

A multi-charged roadside bomb, developed by Hizbollah in Lebanon, is being used against British and American soldiers by Iraqi insurgents linked to Iran, according to military intelligence sources.

The device consists of an array of up to five armour-piercing “explosively formed projectiles” or EFPs, also known as shaped charges. They are fired at different angles at coalition vehicles, resulting in almost certain death for at least some of the soldiers inside.

The bombs are easier for insurgents to use because, unlike single EFP devices, they do not need to be carefully aimed and so can be planted beside a road within a few seconds. Their killing potential is also enhanced because more than one EFP is likely to hit a single vehicle.

Some have been painted to look like concrete blocks – a modification of a tactic used by Iranian-backed Hizbollah, which hollowed out imitation rocks, bought in Beirut garden centres, to conceal bombs targeting Israeli vehicles.

A senior defence source said: “There are clear signs of Iran’s sinister hand, and through that, Hizbollah, in this development.”

A Pentagon document obtained by The Sunday Telegraph describes the devices as “well manufactured by experienced bomb makers” and “pioneered by Lebanese Hizbollah”. It adds: “The United Kingdom has accused Iran of providing these devices to insurgents in Iraq.”

Triggered when an infra-red beam is broken, the projectiles are capable of penetrating the armour of 60-ton Abrams tanks. Warrior armoured vehicles and Land Rovers, used by British forces in southern Iraq, offer almost no protection against them.

In February, John Negroponte, America’s director of national intelligence, blamed the Iranian government for the spread of such weapons throughout Iraq.

He told a United States Senate committee: “Teheran is responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks in 2005, by providing Shia militants with the capability to build IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] with explosively formed projectiles, similar to those developed by Iran and Lebanese Hizbollah.”

Coalition forces recently intercepted an infra-red EFP device being transported into Iraq across the Shatt al-Arab waterway from Iran.

Courtesy of the Telegraph, this picture below offers a primer on the devices.

But even as deadly as this technology is to U.S. troops, to see this in the aggregate is to fail to grasp the larger Iran strategy for Iraq.  Iran’s strategy is twofold, and it is dangerous to misunderstand their intentions or underestimate their willingness to go forward with their plans.

The first prong in the Iran strategy involves retaliatory strikes and armed conflict in Iraq proper should the U.S. use military force to secure or destroy nuclear facilities in Iran.  The Washington Post a couple of months ago reported on Iran’s Iraq strategy:

The most likely theater of operations in the initial stages of a U.S.-Iranian conflict, however, would be next door — in Iraq. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iran has methodically built and strengthened its military, political and religious influence in Iraq. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has extensively infiltrated Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior and police force, both mainstays of Shiite power. The hundreds of Iranian mullahs and businessmen who have slipped across the border have a commanding presence in southern Iraq’s commercial and religious sectors.

[ … ]

Iran’s paramilitary and intelligence buildup in Iraq would put some members of the “coalition of the willing” to shame. Over the past three years, Tehran has deployed to Iraq a large number of the Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force — a highly professional force specializing in assassinations and bombings — as well as officers from the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security and representatives of Lebanese Hezbollah.

[ … ]

Iranian personnel have established safe houses throughout southern Iraq. They monitor the movement of coalition forces, tend weapons caches, facilitate cross-border travel of clerics, smuggle munitions into Iraq and recruit individuals as intelligence sources. Presumably, Tehran has recruited networks within U.S. military bases and civilian compounds that could be activated on short notice. Iran is also believed by regional intelligence agencies to have armed and trained as many as 40,000 Iraqis to prevent an unlikely rollback of Shiite control.

In my post Iran Muscles in on Iraq, I said:

With close enough cooperation, enough largesse spread around by Iran, and enough meddling in the affairs of Iraq, the hope apparently is that Iraq would become more like Iran, a place hostile to Western influences and militant against Western values.

Iran is not for a single second interested in stability in Iraq.  Iran is interested in a world Caliphate, and Iraq is less seen as a stumbling block to that end and more and more seen as another pawn to use to that end.

In a remarkably similar assessment, the Strategy Page about the same time reported:

Al Maliki is trying to convince the Iranians to stop supporting (with money, weapons and technical advisors) radical Shia militias in Iraq. The purpose of this support is to prepare these radical Iraqi groups to stage a coup and take over the Iraqi government. Iraq would then be turned into an Islamic republic, like Iran. This kind of takeover worked in Iran because it was done in the middle of a war with Iraq (in the 1980s), a war begun by Saddam Hussein, who thought he could rush in and grab some Iranian oil fields while Iran was distracted by its rebellion against the Iranian monarchy. The Iranian religious radicals have held on to power since, despite only having the support of a minority of the population, by establishing a police state. Most of the cops are Islamic radicals out to impose proper Islamic lifestyles on all Iranians. Democracy is not considered properly Islamic, nor are a lot of things from the West, including movies and accurate news. But the Iraqis, al Maliki is apparently trying to convince the Iranians, are different. While about 30 percent of the Iranian population supports the religious dictatorship, the percentage is lower in Iraq, and the pro-democracy crowd is armed and willing to fight. The Iranians believe that, as soon as the U.S. troops leave, the Iraqi Islamic radical militias can make their move and, in effect, unite Iran and Iraq as a Shia axis for Islamic radicalism that will conquer the world for the Shia brand of Islam.

And this is the second prong of the Iran strategy.  The first prong is proximate and has immediate consequences, i.e., the deaths of U.S. troops and the destabilization of Iraq.  The second prong is more theoretical but just as dangerous.  Iran wants to control the Middle East, and sees itself at the center of a new Caliphate.  Iraq is a pawn in the strategy to begin this process.

The U.S. will not win in Iraq until Iran is driven out entirely.  Furthermore, driving Iran out of Iraq will not address the possibility of a nuclear Iran.

Deadly and sinister IED technology perfected by Hezbollah with the help of Iran has made its way into Iraq, with the sole purpose, together with the presence of IRGC forces, of the destabilization of Iraq.  Iran sees itself at the center of a new Middle East Caliphate when U.S. troops depart. 

As I have discussed in previous posts, Iran has IRGC troops in Iraq, and has provided IED technology to Iraqi insurgents.  The most recent development in ordnance type and application in Iraq comes in the form of Hizbollah technology.

A multi-charged roadside bomb, developed by Hizbollah in Lebanon, is being used against British and American soldiers by Iraqi insurgents linked to Iran, according to military intelligence sources.

The device consists of an array of up to five armour-piercing “explosively formed projectiles” or EFPs, also known as shaped charges. They are fired at different angles at coalition vehicles, resulting in almost certain death for at least some of the soldiers inside.

The bombs are easier for insurgents to use because, unlike single EFP devices, they do not need to be carefully aimed and so can be planted beside a road within a few seconds. Their killing potential is also enhanced because more than one EFP is likely to hit a single vehicle.

Some have been painted to look like concrete blocks – a modification of a tactic used by Iranian-backed Hizbollah, which hollowed out imitation rocks, bought in Beirut garden centres, to conceal bombs targeting Israeli vehicles.

A senior defence source said: “There are clear signs of Iran’s sinister hand, and through that, Hizbollah, in this development.”

A Pentagon document obtained by The Sunday Telegraph describes the devices as “well manufactured by experienced bomb makers” and “pioneered by Lebanese Hizbollah”. It adds: “The United Kingdom has accused Iran of providing these devices to insurgents in Iraq.”

Triggered when an infra-red beam is broken, the projectiles are capable of penetrating the armour of 60-ton Abrams tanks. Warrior armoured vehicles and Land Rovers, used by British forces in southern Iraq, offer almost no protection against them.

In February, John Negroponte, America’s director of national intelligence, blamed the Iranian government for the spread of such weapons throughout Iraq.

He told a United States Senate committee: “Teheran is responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks in 2005, by providing Shia militants with the capability to build IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] with explosively formed projectiles, similar to those developed by Iran and Lebanese Hizbollah.”

Coalition forces recently intercepted an infra-red EFP device being transported into Iraq across the Shatt al-Arab waterway from Iran.

Courtesy of the Telegraph, this picture below offers a primer on the devices.

But even as deadly as this technology is to U.S. troops, to see this in the aggregate is to fail to grasp the larger Iran strategy for Iraq.  Iran’s strategy is twofold, and it is dangerous to misunderstand their intentions or underestimate their willingness to go forward with their plans.

The first prong in the Iran strategy involves retaliatory strikes and armed conflict in Iraq proper should the U.S. use military force to secure or destroy nuclear facilities in Iran.  The Washington Post a couple of months ago reported on Iran’s Iraq strategy:

The most likely theater of operations in the initial stages of a U.S.-Iranian conflict, however, would be next door — in Iraq. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iran has methodically built and strengthened its military, political and religious influence in Iraq. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has extensively infiltrated Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior and police force, both mainstays of Shiite power. The hundreds of Iranian mullahs and businessmen who have slipped across the border have a commanding presence in southern Iraq’s commercial and religious sectors.

[ … ]

Iran’s paramilitary and intelligence buildup in Iraq would put some members of the “coalition of the willing” to shame. Over the past three years, Tehran has deployed to Iraq a large number of the Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force — a highly professional force specializing in assassinations and bombings — as well as officers from the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security and representatives of Lebanese Hezbollah.

[ … ]

Iranian personnel have established safe houses throughout southern Iraq. They monitor the movement of coalition forces, tend weapons caches, facilitate cross-border travel of clerics, smuggle munitions into Iraq and recruit individuals as intelligence sources. Presumably, Tehran has recruited networks within U.S. military bases and civilian compounds that could be activated on short notice. Iran is also believed by regional intelligence agencies to have armed and trained as many as 40,000 Iraqis to prevent an unlikely rollback of Shiite control.

In my post Iran Muscles in on Iraq, I said:

With close enough cooperation, enough largesse spread around by Iran, and enough meddling in the affairs of Iraq, the hope apparently is that Iraq would become more like Iran, a place hostile to Western influences and militant against Western values.

Iran is not for a single second interested in stability in Iraq.  Iran is interested in a world Caliphate, and Iraq is less seen as a stumbling block to that end and more and more seen as another pawn to use to that end.

In a remarkably similar assessment, the Strategy Page about the same time reported:

Al Maliki is trying to convince the Iranians to stop supporting (with money, weapons and technical advisors) radical Shia militias in Iraq. The purpose of this support is to prepare these radical Iraqi groups to stage a coup and take over the Iraqi government. Iraq would then be turned into an Islamic republic, like Iran. This kind of takeover worked in Iran because it was done in the middle of a war with Iraq (in the 1980s), a war begun by Saddam Hussein, who thought he could rush in and grab some Iranian oil fields while Iran was distracted by its rebellion against the Iranian monarchy. The Iranian religious radicals have held on to power since, despite only having the support of a minority of the population, by establishing a police state. Most of the cops are Islamic radicals out to impose proper Islamic lifestyles on all Iranians. Democracy is not considered properly Islamic, nor are a lot of things from the West, including movies and accurate news. But the Iraqis, al Maliki is apparently trying to convince the Iranians, are different. While about 30 percent of the Iranian population supports the religious dictatorship, the percentage is lower in Iraq, and the pro-democracy crowd is armed and willing to fight. The Iranians believe that, as soon as the U.S. troops leave, the Iraqi Islamic radical militias can make their move and, in effect, unite Iran and Iraq as a Shia axis for Islamic radicalism that will conquer the world for the Shia brand of Islam.

And this is the second prong of the Iran strategy.  The first prong is proximate and has immediate consequences, i.e., the deaths of U.S. troops and the destabilization of Iraq.  The second prong is more theoretical but just as dangerous.  Iran wants to control the Middle East, and sees itself at the center of a new Caliphate.  Iraq is a pawn in the strategy to begin this process.

The U.S. will not win in Iraq until Iran is driven out entirely.  Furthermore, driving Iran out of Iraq will not address the possibility of a nuclear Iran.