U.S. General Says Iran’s Ambassador to Iraq Is in Elite Force
By PAUL VON ZIELBAUER
Published: October 8, 2007
BAGHDAD, Oct. 7 — The American military command here increased its criticism of Iran on Sunday, accusing that country’s ambassador of undisclosed membership in a Revolutionary Guard force and announcing the arrests of three men it described as Iranian agents responsible for kidnappings and weapons smuggling.
The latest accusations came as a series of car bomb attacks in the capital killed at least nine people, apparently all civilians, including one blast near the Iranian Embassy that left three people dead, officials said.
The United States has increasingly accused Iran of involvement in planning and executing attacks against Iraq’s government and American military operations in Iraq — accusations that the Iranian government has repeatedly denied.
On several occasions American military commanders have said the elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran was responsible for supplying anti-American militia forces here with particularly lethal bombs that have been used to kill American troops. The Bush administration has been considering whether to classify the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group.
But Sunday appeared to be the first instance in which the Americans had publicly asserted that Iran’s top diplomat in Iraq was himself a member of the Revolutionary Guard.
The accusation was made by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American military commander, who made the remarks to CNN while he was traveling with a small group of reporters to a military base on the Iranian border. He said, “We have absolute assurance” that a number of Iranians detained by the Americans in Iraq were members of the Quds Force.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/world/middleeast/08iraq.html