In the first part, I looked at the city of Kut, Iraq, and how its proximity to Iran amid the ongoing battles between Iraqi forces and the al-Sadr militias served as a reminder of Iran’s involvement in post-Saddam Iraq.

• Cutting the road to Kut, Part I
• Cutting the road to Kut, Part III

In this post, I’ll take a closer look at that involvement.

According to an August 2005 article in TIME by Michael Ware, with the US next door in Afghanistan, and sending strong signals that it might go into Iraq, Iran was already planning a military presence in Iraq in September 2002. Forces were on the move by the following spring.

The Iranian penetration of Iraq was a long time in planning. On Sept. 9, 2002, with U.S. bases being readied in Kuwait, Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei summoned his war council in Tehran. According to Iranian sources, the Supreme National Security Council concluded, “It is necessary to adopt an active policy in order to prevent long-term and short-term dangers to Iran.” Iran’s security services had supported the armed wings of several Iraqi groups they had sheltered in Iran from Saddam. Iranian intelligence sources say that the various groups were organized under the command of Brigadier General Qassim Sullaimani, an adviser to Khamenei on both Afghanistan and Iraq and a top officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Before the March 2003 invasion, military sources say, elements of up to 46 Iranian infantry and missile brigades moved to buttress the border. Positioned among them were units of the Badr Corps, formed in the 1980s as the armed wing of the Iraqi Shi’ite group known by its acronym SCIRI, now the most powerful party in Iraq. Divided into northern, central and southern axes, Badr’s mission was to pour into Iraq in the chaos of the invasion to seize towns and government offices, filling the vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam’s regime. As many as 12,000 armed men, along with Iranian intelligence officers, swarmed into Iraq.

Since 2005, the aforementioned General Sullaimani has been the head of the Qods Force, established in 1979 to export the Islamic Revolution outside Iran’s borders. In writing about Sullaimani at the Weekly Standard, Dan Darling said:

The very nature of General Suleimani’s position within the IRGC warrants him being on America’s radar. As the commander of Qods Force, Suleimani is charged with overseeing the IRGC’s extra-territorial operations and, according to Time magazine, he serves as a special advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the issues of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Under Suleimani–and his predecessor Ahmad Vahidi–Qods Force has been linked to nearly every instance of Iranian-backed terrorism over the course of the last decade, including the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that killed 85 and injured 230.

It should be added that Qods Force also played a significant role in the creation of Hizballah. Suleimani’s role in the formation of the Iranian-backed militias, and his subsequent elevation to commander of Qods Force illustrates the importance Iran placed on these militias.

In the previous post, I pointed out Kut is near Mehran, Iran, which has been identified as a hub for the transportation of money and weapons. Writing in 2004 at Winds of Change, Dan Darling pointed to a lengthy November 2004 US News article on Iran’s involvement in Iraq, and this article noted that the MEK said the Qods force had moved some of its command staff from Tehran to Mehran.

According to the MEK’s operatives, both Badr and the Iranian command staff were based in Iran at the border town of Mehran. “In order to control and manage the intelligence and terrorist activities in Iraq,” a MEK intelligence officer wrote, “the Qods Force has recently moved part of its command staff from Tehran to the border city of Mehran.” His report also identifed the areas in western, northwestern, and southern Iran where Qods Force commanders operated, along with the identities of more than a dozen commanders.

At first, these militias formed death-squads, carried out assassinations, and probably attacked US forces. Ware wrote,

Intelligence sources claim that Brigadier General Sullaimani ordained in a meeting of his militia proxies in the spring of [2004] that “any move that would wear out the U.S. forces in Iraq should be done.”

In 2004, armor-piercing explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs) began to appear in Iraq. An August 2007 TIME article said,

Deadly EFPs have killed more than 200 troops in Iraq since May of 2004, the military says.

That same article also pointed out that beginning in 2004, militia members began to travel to Iran for training.

U.S. officials contend that Iraqi recruits from the Mahdi Army have traveled in groups numbering between 20 and 60 to Iran in a training program organized by the Quds Forces that dates back to 2004. Once inside Iran, U.S. officials say, Quds Force handlers transport recruits to training camps near Tehran. It’s there, allegedly, that Iraqi militia fighters hone skills needed to effectively use EFPs, mortars and rockets against targets in Iraq. Quds Force trainers, working at times apparently with experienced instructors from the Lebanese militia Hizballah, also school Iraqi guerrillas in intelligence techniques, sniper shooting and kidnapping operations before transporting them back across the border. Once inside Iraq again, militants who’ve undergone Iranian training reportedly form cells that U.S. officials now refer to as “special groups.” These cells, U.S. officials say, then continue to receive weapons, funds and direction from the Quds Force as they unleash some of the bloodiest violence American forces face.

I’ll pivot off this paragraph to point that the nature of Iran’s support for these militias began to change around 2005. In her must-read report from August of last year, Iran’s Proxy War against the US and the Iraqi Government, Kimberly Kagan pointed to the growing involvement of Hizballah.

The number and quality of special groups increased in 2005, as the Iranian government allowed Lebanese Hizballah to train Iraqi militias in Iran. The three small camps used for training Iraqi militias were, as of summer 2007, located near Tehran. Twenty to sixty Iraqis can be trained at once in these facilities, and the training courses lasted from four to six weeks.

The recruits were generally members of militias, including not exclusively Jaysh al-Mahdi. They crossed the border at Zurbatiya-Mehran, usually unarmed and in pairs, sometimes in buses.

On July 2 2007, MNF-Iraq spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner gave an extensive briefing laying out the extent of Iranian involvement in Iraq. (The transcript of that briefing is here, the briefing slides are here.) Gen. Bergner said of Hizballah’s increased role that Yussef Hashim served as the organization’s Head of Special Operations in Iraq. In 2005, person in charge of the training effort was Ali Musa Daqduq. Bergner said,

Here’s what we learned about Ali Musa Daqduq:  He joined the Lebanese Hezbollah in 1983. He served in numerous leadership positions.  He commanded a Hezbollah special operations unit.  He coordinated protection of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.  And he led Hezbollah operations in large areas of Lebanon. In 2005, he was directed by senior Lebanese Hezbollah leadership to go to Iran and work with the Qods Force to train Iraqi extremists.

Also at this time, Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani was in charge of the EFP network, which as I mentioned had ramped up by 2004. However, Bergner detailed another important change around the 2005, 2006 timeframe.

In May of 2006, [Daqduq] traveled to Tehran with Yusef Hashim (sp), a fellow Lebanese Hezbollah and head of their operations in Iraq.  There they met with the commander and the deputy commander of the Iranian Qods Force special external operations.  He was directed by Iranian Qods Force to make trips in and out of Iraq and report on the training and operations of the Iraqi special groups.

In the year prior to his capture, Ali Musa Daqduq made four such trips to Iraq.  He monitored and reported on the training and arming of special groups in mortars and rockets, manufacturing and employment of improvised explosive devices, and kidnapping operations.  Most significantly, he was tasked to organize the special groups in ways that mirrored how Hezbollah was organized in Lebanon.

(click to enlarge) Ali Musa Daqduq, Hizballah liason with Iraqi Special Groups

As part of this reorganization, Qais Khazali became head of the special units in Iraq in June 2006. Khazali had had a falling out with Muqtada al-Sadr. Bergner again,

The Qods Force goal was to develop the Iraqi special groups into a network similar to the Lebanese Hezbollah.  Special groups would be unable to conduct their terrorist attacks in Iraq without Iranian- supplied weapons and other support.  Like Ali Musa Daqduq, Qais’ main contact was Hadji Youssef, the deputy commander for Qods Force Department of External Special Operations.  Funding and training of the special groups started in 2004.  The Qods Force supplies special groups with EFPs, machine guns, rockets, sniper rifles, rocket- propelled grenades and IEDs.

A November 2006 NY Times article by Michael Gordon and Dexter Filkins said this,

A senior American intelligence official said Monday that the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr. The official said that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

While most of the militants in these special groups were Iraqis, Iranians began to work inside Iraq. In December 2006, US Special Forces raided the compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the SCIRI, and two Iranians were captured there. Another five Iranians were captured in a raid in Irbil in January. One of those captured in Hakim’s compound was Mohsen Chirazi, the third-ranking member of the Qods Force.

In January 2007, a special groups operation raided a US facility in Karbala and killed five US soldiers. Writing at the time, Bill Roggio said,

On January 20th, a team of twelve men disguised as U.S. soldiers entered the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, where U.S. soldiers conducted a meeting with local officials, and attacked and killed five soldiers, and wounded another three. The initial reports indicated the five were killed in the Karbala JCC, however the U.S. military has reported that four of those killed were actually removed from the center, handcuffed, and murdered.

In his briefing, Bergner said,

When Qais was captured, we found an in-depth planning and lessons learned document.  It was about the attack the special groups coordinated against the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center on January 20th.  This 22-page document provides a unique window into the planning and execution of special group operations here in Iraq.

It’s important to point out that both Ali Musa Daqduq and Qais Khazali state that senior leadership within the Qods Force knew of and supported planning for the eventual Karbala attack that killed five coalition soldiers.  Ali Musa Daqduq contends that the Iraqi special groups could not have conducted this complex operation without the support and direction of the Qods Force.  Daqduq and Khazali both confirm that Qais Khazali authorized the operation, and Azhar al- Dulaimi, who we killed in an operation earlier this year, executed the operation.

The document that we captured showed the following.  It showed that the group that attacked the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala had conducted extensive preparation and drills prior to the attack.  Qods Force had developed detailed information regarding our soldiers’ activities, shift changes and fences, and this information was shared with the attackers.  They had American-looking uniforms, vehicles and identification cards that enabled the attackers to more    easily penetrate the Provincial Joint Coordination Center and achieve surprise.  (Inaudible) — reported that the captured soldiers were killed when the attackers’ dispersal from the site was interrupted.

As the Iranian-backed efforts against Coalition Forces escalated, so to (finally, some of us thought) did the US response. Beginning around November 2006, US officals began to be much more vocal about the Iranian presence in Iraq. In his January 10 2007 speech announcing the upcoming surge, (as Iraq was in grave danger of sliding into chaos), President Bush said,

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We’ll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

Indeed, throughout 2007, the US began a sustained effort to hurt these Iranian-back special groups. As you might have gleaned from the excerpts above, Qais Khazali was captured in Basra in March 2007. Daqduq was also captured in March 2007. The brother of al-Sheibani was captured in April 2007.

In the previous post, I mentioned a February 2007 briefing given by three unidentified US officials. The slides from that briefing are here, and that briefing also sought to lay out evidence of Iranian involvement. Several slides showed captured Iranian weapons. Here is one.

(click to enlarge) example of Iranian weapons captured in Iraq

They are too numerous to recount here, but there are many many MNF-Iraq press releases throughout 2007 describing operations and successes against the special groups. A commander killed or captured here, a financier there, militants here, and so on.

A significant part of the surge, and the operations that made up the whole, was aimed at these Iranian-backed cells. Kagan writes,

US and Iraqi forces have conducted a multi-phased campaign against secret cell supply networks. First, Special Forces captured or killed high-value targets, exploiting the intelligence gained from the capture of Ali Musa Daqduq and the Khazali brothers. They focused particularly on Sadr City, the base of special groups in Baghdad, and southern cities such as Amarah and Basra. As weapons trafficking networks linked Amarah and Baghdad, the operations in the south contributed directly to captures in the capital.

A second wave of operations against secret cells occurred in July, presumably as Coalition and Iraqi forces gained intelligence in the wake of Phantom Thunder. The scope of these raids widened, and included Diyala province and cities in the south.

Simulataneously, US and Iraqi forces intensified their campaign against secret cell leaders in Baghdad in late July and August, frequently operations against rogue milities in western Baghdad as well as Sadr City.

(The Institute for the Study of War has “this [Google Earth] file [which] maps Multi-National Force-Iraq press releases on activity by and against Special Groups. The press releases are plotted by the location of the incident in reverse chronological order. Efforts have been made to plot the data points with as much accuracy as possible.”)

The fight against Iran continues to this day. Allahpundit asks “What’s Maliki’s next move? Did Maliki’s government sell him out?” The Belmont Club looks at the twists and turns of the latest fighting against al-Sadr’s militias. Just today Jules Crittenden writes,

Persians magnanimous agree to call off their Shiite militias. I guess this means we don’t have to “alleged” or “U.S. accuses Iran of involvement” or any other qualifiers anymore. Apparently the mullahs are calling the shots. Iraqi lawmakers went to Qom over the weekend to ask an Iranian general to kindly stand down his murderous stooges.

In September 2007, Thomas Joscelyn published a must-read document entitle Iran’s Proxy War Against America, laying out the history of Iranian attacks on America. At the end, he said,

When confronted with evidence of Tehran’s support for anti-American violence, the reaction of America’s diplomatic establishment is to search for excuses. There is no better example than the recent debate concerning Iran’s support for the insurgency in Iraq. The media has reported for several years that Iran has supplied Iraqi insurgents with lethal IED (Improvised Explosive Device) technology. The IEDs are a leading cause of American and Iraqi civilian deaths in Iraq, and Iranian provenance for the weapons is a clear act of war.
….
America has long had a blind spot when it comes to her terrorist enemies. But the victims of their terror deserve better. America’s best, who have fallen in defense of her freedom, deserve better. It is long past the day when America should have dealt with Iran’s role in their murder.

Later this week, in the final post in this series, I’ll look at the person of Muqtada al-Sadr, why Iran thought it could use him in their efforts inside Iraq, and why some analysts have talked about these special groups as an Iraqi Hizballah.