Death Squads and Guerrillas

Funny how when the pressure on Iran needs to increase, new data is "found" by the intrepid reporters at a major publication (Time in this instance). Regardless, this is good data:

The U.S. Military's new nemesis in Iraq is named Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, and he is not a Baathist or a member of al-Qaeda. He is working for Iran. According to a U.S. military-intelligence document obtained by TIME, al-Sheibani heads a network of insurgents created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with the express purpose of committing violence against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. Over the past eight months, his group has introduced a new breed of roadside bomb more lethal than any seen before; based on a design from the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hizballah, the weapon employs "shaped" explosive charges that can punch through a battle tank's armor like a fist through the wall. According to the document, the U.S. believes al-Sheibani's team consists of 280 members, divided into 17 bombmaking teams and death squads. The U.S. believes they train in Lebanon, in Baghdad's predominantly Shi'ite Sadr City district and "in another country" and have detonated at least 37 bombs against U.S. forces this year in Baghdad alone.

More on death squads:

More sinister are signs of death squads charged with eliminating potential opponents and former Baathists. U.S. intelligence sources confirm that early targets included former members of the Iran section of Saddam's intelligence services. In southern cities, Thar-Allah (Vengeance of God) is one of a number of militant groups suspected of assassinations. U.S. commanders in Baghdad and in eastern provinces say similar cells operate in their sectors. The chief of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, General Mohammed Abdullah al-Shahwani, has publicly accused Iranian-backed cells of hunting down and killing his officers. In October he blamed agents in Iran's Baghdad embassy of coordinating assassinations of up to 18 of his people, claiming that raids on three safe houses uncovered a trove of documents linking the agents to funds funneled to the Badr Corps for the purposes of "physical liquidation."

Comments

[b]

Well, the Zarqawi story was getting a bit old. A new Emmanuel Goldstein is needed. Here comes al-Sheibani.

[Jeremiah]

The salvador option is bread on the water.

You probably already know about Los Zetas
http://organicwarfare.blogspot.com/2005/08/los-zetas-us-trained-mx-ex-commandos.html
but if not, it's pretty interesting. They're yet another US-trained commando unit (School of Americas) that went rogue and went to work for the Gulf cartel.

Makes me wonder if they went rogue at all, if you catch my drift.

[mark safranski]

"Makes me wonder if they went rogue at all, if you catch my drift."

Let's not go all Chomskyian here, foreigners actually do have internal/intrinsic motivations for their actions that have nothing to do with (or are in addition to) U.S. policy or reacting against it. Greed, for example, is marvellously universal as a human quality. So are small group loyalties prevailing over abstract and generalized ones.

In the case of Iran, the government is hardly a well-disciplined totalitarian state. It's faction-ridden to the point of having factions within factions. Moreover the borders with Iraq are rather permeable - people have been moving back and forth with minimal constraints for - oh - 3000 years. It would be unsurprising if Iran did not try to influence events in Iraq in its favor.

[Jeremiah]

Oh, I agree with you. I think greed is a very powerful motivator indeed, on both sides of the border.

[kevin]

I predict UN sanctions that block the flow of oil from Iran to China or...... armed confrontation ;)

[John Robb]

China has already promised a veto in the security council. No sanctions on Iran are likely.

[Pre-Emptive]

Pre-Emptive Nuclear Strikes Against Iran?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/politics/11nukes.html

[Thanks]

Nice site. Thanks