U.S. Implicates Iran in January Attack

An Iraqi youth reacts as a US military's Bradley fighting vehicle is on flames in Obeidi, in south east Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, July 2, 2007, after it was struck by a road side bomb, according to eyewitnesses. There were no reports on possible casualties. (AP Photo) (AP)

Carrying false IDs, up to a dozen fighters disguised themselves as an American security team. They got past checkpoints to reach a provincial government building, where they opened fire with machine guns and explosives. One U.S. soldier was killed in the initial attack, and four others were abducted and found shot to death soon after.

Al-Khazaali was in charge of special groups around Iraq and confessed to ordering the Karbala attack, Bergner said. A 22-page document seized with him detailed the operation, showing that the Quds Force had developed detailed information on U.S. soldiers' "shift changes and defenses" at the government building, "and this information was shared with the attackers," Bergner said.

A total of 18 "higher-level operatives" from the Iranian-backed special groups have been arrested and three others killed since February, Bergner said.

The Shiite-led Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is backed by the U.S. but is also closely tied to Iran, and it has hoped that talks between the two rivals could ease the tensions between them and reduce Iraq's violence.

An initial Baghdad session in February between ambassadors from the two countries, however, made little progress, overshadowed by accusations by each side that the other was fueling Iraq's turmoil. Iraq is trying to organize a second meeting, but no date has been set.

Sami al-Askari, al-Maliki adviser, said, "We don't rule out that there is Iranian interference by financing armed groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, or even that there might be some Hezbollah elements training the groups."

But he insisted the U.S. accusations "will not affect the Iranian-American meeting."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack echoed Bergner's charges, saying they were "another data point in what is a troubling picture of Iranian negative involvement in Iraq."

"We have found that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has essentially subcontracted out to some elements of Hezbollah, using them as a pass through for material, technology and other material assistance," McCormack said. "It is of deep concern to us."

Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the allegations about Hezbollah were not surprising.

"Iran has always worked through Hezbollah, and it makes sense because Hezbollah is well-versed in this kind of terrain ... in this kind of ambiguous situation where there is sectarian violence and an outside occupation," said Takeyh.

An American soldier was killed Monday by an explosion in Salahuddin province, a center for Sunni insurgents northwest of Baghdad. The U.S. military also reported the deaths of five U.S. service members killed in fighting a day earlier, in attacks in Baghdad and western Anbar province.

But violence appeared sharply down in Baghdad and other parts of the country, amid an intensified U.S. security sweep aimed at uprooting Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in the capital and areas to the northeast and south.

Iraqi police reported four civilians killed in separate attacks in Baghdad. And car bomb hit the Baghdad district of Binouk in the evening, killing seven people and wounding 33, hospital officials said.

U.S. warplanes struck buildings in the mostly Shiite city of Diwaniyah with 500-pound bombs early Monday, targeting sites suspected as the source of mortar fire, the U.S. Air Force said. Iraqi police in the city said the raid killed 10 civilians, including women and children, wounded 25 others and damaged six homes. The police spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

AP Television News footage from the area showed houses with large holes, as residents dug through rubble, pulling out at least one person on a stretcher. Following the raid, residents protested in the streets, and Iraqi police fired in the air to disperse them, killing one person. Some protesters fired back, wounding two policemen, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.