Politics > Politics-USA > Jim Lobe - Tit for Tat game between the U.S. and Iran continues to escalate
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"can_o_worms" |
| Date: |
30 Jan 2007 09:49:03 PM |
| Object: |
Jim Lobe - Tit for Tat game between the U.S. and Iran continues to escalate |
POLITICS-US/IRAQ:
from the Inter Press Service News Agency
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36359
Who Is the Enemy?
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (IPS) - Two incidents involving
U.S. forces in predominantly Shi'a southern Iraq over
the past week appear to demonstrate the growing
complexities and dangers of the country's civil
conflict.
Sunday's day-long battle near Najaf, in which two U.S.
pilots were killed when their military helicopter was
shot down, was first reported as an attack by Sunni
insurgents and "foreign fighters" on the holy city and
the tens of thousands of Shi'a pilgrims who are
converging there for Ashura.
But later reports identified the heavily armed and
highly organised assailants as members of the Army of
Heaven, an obscure Shiite sect that believes the
killing of Najaf's senior ayatollahs, including Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, will hasten the return of
the Mahdi.
The Iraqi government claimed that 200 Army members
were killed, including the group's leader, and another
120 captured after some 15 hours of fighting, which
reportedly came as a major surprise to U.S. officials
despite the large number of Army fighters involved and
the firepower -- a heavy machine gun downed the U.S.
helicopter, according to the Pentagon -- at their
disposal.
"If they had succeeded in their plans, the political
consequences would have been catastrophic," said one
Washington official who noted that this was by far the
heaviest fighting in the south since the 2004
insurrection by Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
"The fact that we had no forewarning when so many
people were involved shows how limited our intelligence
is not just in al-Anbar (province, the stronghold of
the Sunni insurgency) and Baghdad, but in the south,
too. We really don't know much about what is going on
there."
U.S.-led coalition forces formally returned control
over security to Iraqi forces just last month.
Meanwhile, officials here are still trying to figure
out who was behind the Jan. 20 surprise attack on a
U.S. security team that was meeting with their Iraqi
counterparts in the regional government offices in
Karbala, some 70 kms north of Najaf.
After initially reporting that five U.S. soldiers were
killed defending the compound, the Pentagon reported
late last week that only one was killed in the initial
attack, while the other four were abducted and later
shot execution-style about 40 kms to the east where
their bodies were found.
As reported by the Associated Press, as many as a
dozen attackers traveled in the kind of convoy of SUVs
frequently used by U.S. officials in Iraq. They wore
U.S. combat fatigues, and at least several of them
spoke English, according to Iraqi soldiers who waved
them through a checkpoint on the outskirts of Karbala.
The SUVs and uniforms apparently involved in the attack
were later found abandoned with the bodies in Mahawil
in Babil province after Iraqi guards at one checkpoint
gave chase.
"The precision of the attack, the equipment used, and
the possible use of explosives to destroy the military
vehicles in the compound suggests that the attack was
well rehearsed prior to execution," a military
spokesman in Baghdad told AP.
While the U.S. military has announced the arrest of
four suspects in the attack, which was unprecedented
in its sophistication, no further information has been
released, fueling speculation both within the
government and among independent analysts as to who
was behind it.
Juan Cole, an expert at the University of Michigan,
said he believed the attackers' final destination in
Mahawil, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city in an area of
intense Sunni guerrilla activity, suggests that Sunni
insurgents were responsible and that the raid "was
aimed at harming security arrangements" for the Ashura
pilgrimage that ends Tuesday in Karbala where tens of
thousands will commemorate the martyrdom of the Prophet
Mohammed's grandson, al-Hussein.
But both the precision of the attack -- only U.S.
soldiers were singled out -- also points to an inside
job, according to Cole. "(S)o how would there have been
Sunni Arab guerrilla sympathisers at this police and
army meeting at Shiite Karbala?" he asked, suggesting
that perhaps "mixed units" were involved.
But, as perplexing to U.S. officials as Cole's question
may be, answers put forward by other sources are
perhaps even more ominous.
Ray Close, a retired top Middle East analysis at the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) suggested that the
attack and the abductions may have been retaliation
for two recent raids in which the U.S. military seized
and abducted Iranian officials in Iraq -- the first in
Baghdad on Dec. 21, the second in the Kurdish city of
Arbil on Jan. 10 -- as part of an increasingly
dangerous "game of tit-for-tat".
After protests by the Iraqi central government, as
well as by Tehran, the Iranians arrested in the first
raid were released and deported home. The fact that
the raid took place at the offices of the leader of
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI), Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who had just returned
from Washington where he was treated as an honoured
guest at the White House by President George W. Bush,
naturally added to consternation over the incident.
The five Iranians seized in the second raid, which
also elicited protests from both Baghdad, notably
President Jalal Talabani and the local Kurdish
authorities, have not yet been released, although
Iranian officials in Tehran hinted Monday they had
received a message from Washington regarding a
resolution of the case.
Both raids came amid escalating charges by Bush, as
well as other senior U.S. officials, that Iran is
providing "material support for attacks on American
troops" and threats to, in Bush's words' "seek out and
destroy the networks" that are allegedly doing so. On
Wednesday, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad is expected to
elaborate on U.S. charges based in part on materials
seized during the two raids.
In widely circulated memo, Close cites a "very
knowledgeable friend" and recently retired analyst
from the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), who noted
Washington has had contingency plans for "specific
paramilitary actions against Iranian personnel inside
Iraq in case Iranian support for the insurgency became
a significant problem," and that such actions would
likely provoke retaliation.
"My friend looks at the recent incident in Karbala as
very probably an Iranian operation carried out in
retaliation against the recent seizures of Iranian
operatives by the U.S. in Baghdad and Irbil," Close
wrote. "He says that the sophistication of the Karbala
operation seems far beyond the capabilities of the
Iraqi insurgents, and indicates the high probability
of Iranian planning and execution."
"We need to watch carefully now to see if the
'tit-for-tat' game between the U.S. and Iran continues
to escalate, and if in the end it proves to be a game
that we might have been wiser to avoid or to minimize
as much as possible," Close wrote.
At least one thing is relatively clear: Iran was
unlikely to have been behind Sunday's attack on Najaf.
Adherents to the Army of Heaven are reported to be
violently anti-Iran and burned down Iranian consulates
in Basra and Karbala last year. (END/2007)
from the Inter Press Service News Agency
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36359
Jim Lobe is also a contributor to antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe
Jim Lobe, works as Inter Press Service's
correspondent in the Washington, D.C., bureau. He has
followed the ups and downs of neo-conservatives since
well before their rise in the aftermath of the
September 11, 2001 attacks and his expertise has been
recognized by major international media, including the
'Four Corners' public affairs programme of the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Australia
BroadcastingCorporation; the BBC's 'Panorama' news
magazine and the London-based Al Hayat newspaper,
among others.
IPS has compiled all of Jim's stories on the
neo-conservative ascendancy that he has written for
IPS over the last several years for those interested
in learning more about the neo-conservatives, their
networks and remarkable success in gaining influence
over Bush's foreign policy.
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/neo-cons/index.asp
.
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
