Iran TerrorismUS warns Iran against any support for Zarqawi

US warns Iran against any support for Zarqawi

-

AFP: The United States on Monday warned Iran against providing any type of support to Al-Qaeda-linked foreign
militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and his Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group, saying such backing would be a “very, very serious matter.” The State Department declined to comment on allegations of an Iran-Zarqawi link … AFP

WASHINGTON – The United States on Monday warned Iran against providing any type of support to Al-Qaeda-linked foreign militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and his Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group, saying such backing would be a “very, very serious matter.”

The State Department declined to comment on allegations of an Iran-Zarqawi link, first claimed last week by Iraq’s interim national intelligence chief Mohammed al-Shahwani and then reported by Newsweek magazine, but said Washington remained deeply concerned about Tehran’s activity in Iraq.

“All I would be able to say (about the accusations) is that we have generally been very concerned about some of the reports of Iranian activity in Iraq,” spokesman Richard Boucher said.

“We have frequently discussed these in public, as well as made clear, I think, to others what our concerns were so that the Iranians would know exactly what our concerns were about possible support for different groups inside Iraq,” he told reporters.

“The Iraqi interim government has also been quite vocal both directly with the Iranians and in their statements with others about the concerns about Iran so it remains an issue, a very serious concern,” Boucher said.

“And were it to be found that Iran was providing particular support for this terrorist group, obviously that would be a very, very serious matter,” he said, referring to the Tawhid wal Jihad, which the United States formally designated a “foreign terrorist organization” on Friday.

Shahwani, the Iraqi intelligence chief, told AFP last week that he believed Iran, through its embassy in Baghdad, was masterminding an assassination campaign that has seen nearly 20 of his agents killed since the middle of last month.

He said raids on Iranian “safe houses” in Baghdad had uncovered documents linking Iran to plots to kill members of the intelligence service and using the Badr former militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq’s (SCIRI) as its tool.

SCIRI has vigorously denied the allegations and counter-charged that the intelligence service is full of veterans of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s military who are now renewing their vendetta against former Shiite resistance groups based out of Iran in the 1980s.

But Shahwani said that since mid-September, 18 Iraqi intelligence agents have been killed in Iraq, 10 of them by the Badr organisation on orders from Iran and the rest by Zarqawi, including two that were beheaded last week.

He said he suspected Tehran was funding the Jordanian-born Zarqawi, but lacked conclusive proof.

Newsweek on Sunday cited sources close to Jordanian intelligence as saying Zarqawi had traveled back and forth between Iraq and Iran several times since Saddam Hussein’s ouster and had established a high-level relationship with at least some Iranian officials.

Latest news

 Statistics show that New Year accidents’ deaths in Iran reached 585

Ahmad Shirani, the head of the Information and Traffic Control Center of the Iranian regime’s police, announced that the...

Land Subsidence in Critical Conditions in Isfahan

Mehdi Toghyani, a member of the Iranian regime’s Majlis (parliament), pointed to the occurrence of land subsidence in various...

Iran’s Actual Inflation Rate Higher Than Official Stats

The state-run Donya-e-eqtesad newspaper, in a report analyzing the "general sentiment" regarding inflation in 2023, has stated that households...

Iranian Workers’ Monthly $136 Wages Can’t Cover $500 Expenses

The lives of a significant portion of the Iranian population are marked by uncertainty, largely because the Iranian economy...

Iranian Nurses Earn Twice Their Wages in Ride-Hailing Services

Reza Aryanpour, a member of the regime’s Majlis (parliament) Health and Treatment Commission, highlighted the growing trend of nurses...

Iran: Unprecedented Record of 152 Million Liters of Gasoline Consumption Per Day

On March 19, Iran set a new historical record in gasoline consumption with 152 million liters consumed in one...

Must read

Clinton urges Iran to reconsider nuclear policy

Reuters: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Iran Sunday...

Iran and the EU

By Jubin Katiraie In the early 2010s, relations between...

You might also likeRELATED
Recommended to you