Prime Minister al-Maliki’s government has confronted Iran about Iranian support of Shi'ite militias now fighting Iraqi government forces. Reuters:
An Iraqi delegation in Iran has confronted Iranian security officials with evidence that Tehran is providing support for Shi'ite militias battling Iraqi government forces, an Iraqi official said on Friday.
"They presented a list of names, training camps and cells linked to Iran," Haidar al-Ibadi, a member of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawa party, told Reuters.
"The Iranians did not confess or admit anything. They claim they are not intervening in Iraq and they feel they are being unfairly blamed for everything going on Iraq," he said of the talks, which took place on Thursday.
Prime Minister al-Maliki is asserting his role as the leader of all of Iraq, not just the Shias.
Washington has long accused Tehran of backing Shi'ite militias, particularly fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, providing them with weapons, funding and training. It has displayed some of the weapons, including rockets and mortars.(Photo credit: Media.McClatchydc.com)
The Shi'ite-led Iraqi government, however, has generally been more restrained in its criticism of its Shi'ite majority neighbour, which denies the charges and says it supports the government.
Maliki launched a crackdown on the Mehdi Army in the southern oil hub of Basra in late March, provoking a furious response by the militia in southern Iraq and Baghdad, including relentless volleys of Iranian-made rockets against the Green Zone government and diplomatic compound in the capital.
The U.S. military said this week that "very,very significant" amounts of Iranian weaponry had been found in Basra and Baghdad during the offensive. Some of those arms were made in 2008, a senior U.S. military official said on Friday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there had been a "sea change" in Baghdad's view of Iranian activity in Iraq since the discovery of the weapons.
"Basra changed it for the Iraqis. I'm not sure they believed it before. But they went to Basra and saw it first hand," he said.
