Two Shiite Muslim parties on Friday accused Iran of instigating violence in Iraq and attempting to destabilize the country, exposing a growing rift within Iraq's largest sect that many fear will exacerbate the nation's slide into full-scale civil war.
"All of this violence is because of the Shiism in Iran," Adnan Aboudi, head of the Islamic Allegiance Party, said in a telephone interview. "There are external infiltrating fingers playing now throughout the Iraqi arena." The party is the political wing of cleric Mahmoud Abdul Ridha al-Hassani, who is virulently anti-Iranian and anti-American.
A senior official with the Fadhila bloc, a powerful Shiite religious party that controls the oil-rich city of Basra, said Friday that "Iranian individuals are trying to depose Fadhila from the government."
"Iran has many tools and individuals in the country who are doing the things that are wanted by Iran," said the official, Abdul Wahab Razouti, who declined to name those individuals or the groups they belong to.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081801383.html