Iran's bomb squads 'part of long-term plan for Iraq'

WASHINGTON - Iranian-backed insurgents in Iraq are responsible for a new type of lethal roadside bomb, part of plans by Tehran to influence its neighbour that began even before the American invasion, Time reported.

Citing a United States military intelligence document, the magazine said that over the past eight months, a network led by a man named Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani had introduced bombs based on a design from the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hizbollah that can easily pierce battle tank armour.

The document estimated that al-Sheibani's team comprised 280 members divided into 17 bomb-making teams and death squads, Time said.

This appeared to be part of an Iranian plan for gaining influence in Iraq that began before the US invaded in March 2003, Time said.

Its investigation was based on documents smuggled from Iran and interviews with US, British and Iraqi intelligence officials, as well as an Iranian agent, armed dissidents and Iraqi militia and political allies.

Time cited an unnamed senior US military official in Baghdad as saying one of the new bombs killed three British soldiers in Amarah last month.

"One suspects this would have to have a higher degree of approval [in Tehran]," it quoted the official as saying.

The US believes Iran has arranged a pact between Iraqi Shiite militants and Hizbollah, and helped import sophisticated weapons that kill and wound US and British troops.

The magazine also said it had documents that pointed to a role by forces attached to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in controlling the cities of Kut and Amarah shortly after the invasion.

It also said coalition military officials believe Iranian-funded militias helped organise a mob attack in the southern township of Majarr al-Kabir in June 2003 that resulted in the execution of six British military police.

Time said it had Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps files that include substantial pay records from August 2004 that seem to show Iran was paying the salaries of at least 11,740 members of Iraq's Badr Corps militia group.

However, it said, Badr Corps leader Hadi al-Amri has denied this was currently the case.

Time said Abu Hassan, a former Iraqi official and member of the armoured corps of former leader Saddam Hussein, told it last northern summer that he was recruited by an Iranian agent in 2004 to provide the names and addresses of Interior Ministry officials in close contact with American military officers and liaisons.

It said Abu Hassan's Iranian handler wanted to know "who the Americans trusted and where they were" and asked him to find out if Abu Hassan could get someone into the office of then Prime Minister Iyad Allawi without being searched.

Allawi told Time he believes Iranian agents plotted to assassinate him.

Western diplomats believe information they give to the new Iraqi Government is probably shared with Tehran.

"We have to think anything we tell or share with the Iraqi Government ends up in Tehran," Time quoted one envoy as saying.

- REUTERS