Iran accused of using Hezbollah to support Iraqi insurgency
Tehran (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Iran is accused of being behind the chaos in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan. Meanwhile the great powers are still discussing sanctions to impose on the mullah-run regime, which has so far refused to budge on its nuclear programme.
Iran's elite Quds force helped militants carry out a January attack in Karbala that killed five Americans, US military spokesman Brigadier General Kevin J. Bergner said on Monday. Tehran also used the Lebanese Shi’a militia Hezbollah as a "proxy" to arm Shi’a militants in Iraq to do their dirty work, he added.
As evidence the Americans produced statements by a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative, Ali Mussa Dakdouk, who was captured March 20 in southern Iraq, Bergner said. Dakdouk had been sent to finance and arm groups ready to attack US and Iraqi troops.
The general also said that Dakdouk was a liaison between Iran’s al-Quds force, an elite unit with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who respond directly to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
International press reports also carried veiled accusations from European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana who said that Iran might be linked to the Hamas takeover of Gaza, recent attacks on the Lebanese army and on Spanish UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon.
The statement attributed to the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy were however denied by Solana’s spokeswoman who told Iranian state news agency IRNA that there was a “wrong interpretation.”
Iranian analysts have however criticised the EU’s soft approach policy towards Tehran, saying that it plays into the hands of the Islamist regime which is using delaying tactics to continue its nuclear plans.
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