Considering the allegation being made, I expected to see a thread on this. Maybe I missed it. [
Hezbollah Trains Iraqis in Iran, Officials Say - New York Times]
Anyway, an official summed up interrogation records for the Times, apparently, and Iran has been seeking to train Iraqi militants "unobtrusively." The article is pretty indirect about its sources, and this snippet is tucked into the middle:
Quote:
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The official summed up the information from the interrogation reports but did not make them available. He declined to be identified because the information had not been released publicly.
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So, assuming these interrogation reports are legitimate and that this anonymous official isn't just spreading rumors:
Quote:
Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran, according to American interrogation reports that the United States has supplied to the Iraqi government.
An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.
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Material from the interrogations was given to the Iraqi government, along with other data about captured Iranian arms, before it sent a delegation to Tehran last week to discuss allegations of Iranian aid to militia groups.
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In a possible effort to be less obtrusive, it appears that Iran is now bringing small groups of Iraqi Shiite militants to camps in Iran, where they are taught how to do their own training, American officials say.
The militants then return to Iraq to teach comrades how to fire rockets and mortars, fight as snipers or assemble explosively formed penetrators, a particularly lethal type of roadside bomb made of Iranian components, according to American officials. The officials describe this approach as “training the trainers.”
The training, the Americans say, is carried out at several camps near Tehran that are overseen by the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Command, and the instruction is carried out by militants from Hezbollah, which has long been supported by the Quds Force. American officials say the Hezbollah militants perform several important roles for the Iranians.
First, they say, the Iranians believe it is useful to have Arabs train fellow Arabs. Second, Hezbollah has considerable experience in planning operations and using weapons and explosives in Lebanon.
According to American officials, the four Shiite militants who provided the information on Hezbollah’s role were captured between last September and December after they had returned from training in Iran. They were questioned individually and provided similar accounts, the American officials said.
The captured men described themselves in the accounts as part of a class of 16 militants who crossed into Iran from southern Iraq and were taken to a camp near Tehran, where they studied in a classroom and in the field. Some had been in Iran several times as part of a program that American officials said was aimed at turning them into “master trainers” and which could last several years.
According to their interrogation reports, the militiamen believed that militants from other countries were also being trained at the camp, an impression based on hearing snippets of conversations in other dialects and languages. But the group was kept separate and was not allowed to mingle with others.
American officials say that they believe that similar classes have been arranged for other groups of Iraqi militants, but that the effort appears to be compartmentalized to ensure security.
An American official said that an Iraqi who facilitated the militiamen’s travel to Iraq was also captured and confessed that he had been paid by an Iranian. The official summed up the information from the interrogation reports but did not make them available. He declined to be identified because the information had not been released publicly.
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What to do? A tactical strike against these camps? That seems to be a clear option, but Iran's retaliation could unleash a wave of violence around the region. Make the Iraqi government take a hard stance against this sort of clandestine Iranian "support"? A nice idea, but it doesn't look like many of the Iraqi Shiite factions would be willing to follow through with it. Try to further alienate Iran by strong condemnations about its nuclear program? Possible, but it seems that NIE report a little while back may have weakened international support in that arena, and meanwhile the negotiators are futilely
offering Iran essentially the same incentives package that was denied before. It seems to me the most pragmatic plan would be some clandestine countermeasures, such as those that the US has allegedly be engaging in anyway. But what about non-covert countermeasures? Are good options even available, you think?