Inside Iran's Secret War for Iraq

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For many Iraqis in the south, the exile militia groups brought with them forbidding religious strictures. "These guys with beards and Kalashnikovs showed up saying they'd come to protect the campus," says a student leader at a Basra university. "The problem is, they never left." Militants frequently "investigate" youths accused of un-Islamic behavior, such as couples holding hands or girls wearing makeup. "They're watching us, and they're the ones who control the streets, while the police, who are with them, stand by," says a student leader who did not wish to be identified. "From the beginning, the Islamic parties filled the void," says a police lieutenant colonel working closely with British forces. "They still hold the real power. The rank and file all belong to the parties. Everyone does. You can't do anything without them."

Military officials say they believe Iranian-funded militias helped organize a mob attack in the southern township of Majarr al-Kabir on June 24, 2003, that resulted in the execution of six British military-police officers. According to a classified British military-intelligence document, a local militia leader is "implicated in the murder of the 6 RMP [Royal Military Police]." The man heads a cell of the Mujahedin for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (MIRI), a paramilitary outfit coordinated out of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's base in Ahvaz, Iran. Although U.S. and British officers think it unlikely the soldiers were killed on orders from Revolutionary Guard officers, they agree that the slayings fit within the Iranian generals' broad guidelines to bog coalition forces down in sporadic hit-and-run attacks.

The Iranian program is as impressive as it is comprehensive, competing with and sometimes bettering the coalition's endeavors. Businesses, front companies, religious groups, NGOs and aid for schools and universities are all part of the mix. Just as Washington backs Iraqi news outlets like al-Hurra television station, Tehran has funded broadcast and print outlets in Iraq. A 2003 Supreme National Security Council memo, smuggled out of Iran, suggests even the Iranian Red Crescent society, akin to the Red Cross, has coordinated its activities through the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The memo instructs officials that "the immediate needs of the Iraqi people should be determined" by the Guard's al-Quds Force.

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."