Iran arms Iraqi insurgents

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Iran is supplying deadly shoulder-fired missiles and armor-piercing bombs to Iraqi insurgents, along with TNT, triggering devices, rockets and other weapons that are killing and injuring hundreds of U.S. and allied troops, a U.S. military intelligence report made public yesterday says.

The detailed briefing report, titled "Iranian Support for Lethal Activity in Iraq," stated that Iranian Misagh-1 portable anti-aircraft missiles were found after a failed attempt to shoot down a plane at Baghdad's airport in 2004.

Disclosure of the Iranian provision of anti-aircraft missiles comes as six U.S. helicopters have been shot down by insurgents in the past three weeks. It is not known whether Iranian missiles were used in the attacks.

The armor-piercing bombs have killed at least 170 American and allied troops in Iraq, defense officials told reporters in Baghdad, where the report was released.

"More than 170 U.S. and coalition troops have been killed by these things, and 620 wounded. There was a significant increase in their use over the past six months," one defense official said.

"The weapons had characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran. ... Iran is the only country in the region that produces these weapons," said a defense official who briefed reporters in Baghdad, adding that Tehran was using Shi'ite cleric Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army as a surrogate in Iraq.

The report stated that the Iranians involved in supporting Iraqi extremists are members of the Qods Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Tehran's Islamist paramilitary shock troops. The Qods Force is known to back terrorists throughout the Middle East, according to the 16-page report.

A senior defense official said the Iranian terrorist support is "coming from the highest levels of the Iranian government."

Much of the intelligence in the report was obtained in the past several months, including an identity card of a Qods Force member who was captured along with four other Iranian agents in a raid on the group's office in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil last month. The identity card bore the logo of the Qods Force.

"Over the last 60 days, Iranian and Iraqi detainees have told us that the Qods Force provides support to extremist groups in the form of money and weapons," the report said. "Their information included references to Iranian provision of weapons to Iraqi militants engaged in anti-coalition violence, as well as weapons and training to these same militants."