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An update on this story. "Hezbollah said to train Shiite militiamen in Iraq," by Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra for the Associated Press, July 1:
BAGHDAD - Hezbollah instructors trained Shiite militiamen at remote camps in southern Iraq until three months ago when they slipped across the border to Iran — presumably to continue instruction on Iranian soil, according to two Shiite lawmakers and a top army officer.
The three Iraqis claim the Lebanese Shiites were also involved in planning some of the most brazen attacks against U.S.-led forces, including the January 2007 raid on a provincial government compound in Karbala in which five Americans died.
The allegations, made in separate interviews with The Associated Press, point not only to an Iranian hand in the Iraq war, but also to Hezbollah's willingness to expand beyond its Lebanese base and assume a broader role in the struggle against U.S. influence in the Middle East.
All this suggests that Shiite-dominated Iran is waging a proxy war against the United States to secure a dominant role in majority-Shiite Iraq, which has supplanted Lebanon as Tehran's top priority in the Middle East.
Exactly.
"The stakes are much higher in Iraq, where there is a Shiite majority, oil, the shrine cities and borders with Saudi Arabia," said analyst Farid al-Khazen, a Christian Lebanese lawmaker whose party is allied with Hezbollah.
"The big story is Iraq, and the Americans unwittingly opened it up for the Iranians" by their invasion in 2003, al-Khazen said.
Yep.
The allegations come as the United States and Iran are engaged in a showdown over Tehran's nuclear program and each country's role in Iraq.
Iran, Hezbollah's mentor, denies giving any support to Shiite extremists in Iraq.
But the three Iraqis who spoke to the AP said the Iranians prefer to use Hezbollah instructors because as Arabs, they can communicate better with the Iraqi Shiites and maintain a lower profile than Farsi-speakers from Iran.
For Hezbollah, a high-risk role in Iraq could give the Lebanese movement leverage with the United States and broaden its appeal within the Arab world where anti-American sentiment remains strong.
Iraqi officials have said little about a Hezbollah role in this country. However, President Jalal Talabani told U.S.-funded Alhurra television this week that "there have been several occasions" when Hezbollah members or those who "claim to belong to Hezbollah" have been detained in Iraq.
He gave no further details.
But the two Iraqi lawmakers and the military officer said Hezbollah instructors work only with members of the Iraqi Shiite "special groups," the U.S. military's name for splinter factions of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. The U.S. believes that Iran's elite Quds Force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, supports the special groups....
Posted by Marisol at July 2, 2008 12:08 AM
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If only the US troops were out of Iraq, this would be good news. Just get the Saudis and Jordanians to open their borders to send Ikhwan types into Iraq, and join forces with the Sunni there. Then let there be a free for all, with OPEC/Islamic cash going into funding their respective sides, instead of going into subverting institutions in bilad ul Kafir.
Why can't Conservatives just buy into this simple logic, without seeing a surrender monkey in such advocates? The only ones I know of who've been opposed to continued US presence in Iraq are Debbie Sclussel and Rabbi Daniel Lapin. The good rabbi has even questioned the rational of US troops staying on in Iraq, given that nobody can define the objective, or demonstrate that the objective in question is an appropriate one for the US military.
Posted by: Infidel Pride![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 2, 2008 12:48 AM
Hummm – Hizballah, creeping, ever so sneakily, into U.S. Forces “Battle Space”
hummm, what could it possibly portend?
Why, welcome Hizballah, to the U.S. Army and the Marines - most glad they are to see you HERE and they wouldn’t have it any other way! You know it gets mighty boring without Jihadi targets flitting about!
This is good news indeed!
DEUS VULT!
at July 2, 2008 2:25 AM
"analyst Farid al-Khazen, a Christian Lebanese lawmaker whose party is allied with Hezbollah."
Wow.
at July 2, 2008 2:59 AM
"The only ones I know of who've been opposed to continued US presence in Iraq are Debbie Sclussel and Rabbi Daniel Lapin."
-- from a posting above
No one else? No one else since late February 2004, almost every day, in every way, at this very site?
Posted by: Hugh at July 2, 2008 8:40 AM
"analyst Farid al-Khazen, a Christian Lebanese lawmaker whose party is allied with Hezbollah."
-- an excerpt from the article noted by a poster above
The poster above expresses surprise at this alliance. But think of the Middle East, think of Lebanon, as a kaleidoscope, constantly being turned, with the little colored stones being shifted about, creating new, but most temporary, patterns.
In the case of those Christians who, following the lead of the mercurial General Aoun, decided to throw in their lot with Hezbollah, the explanation has partly to do with the apparent argument by Aoun that the Christians need to be seen as not being against the now-largest group in Lebanon, that is the Shi'a.
Aoun, or other Christians allied with him, may also have calculated that the Syrian regime, because it is Alawite, and thus out of self-interest has to protect the Christians in Syria (Syrian government offices close down on Christmas, and on Good Friday Christians celebrate in unafraid fashion), may in the end be the best for them.
But overwhelmingly the Christians of Lebanon have not followed Aoun, and do not support Hezbollah, and the recent behavior of Hezbollah, as it attempts to create little military outposts in Christian, Sunni Muslim, and Druse areas, has not gone unnoticed. Right now the Sunnis in Tripoli are attacking not the Shi'a, but the local supporters of Hezbollah, and therefore ready targets of Sunni ire, that is Alawites who, either because they are allied or think of themselves as allied, or are regarded by Sunnis as being allied, to the Alawites who rule in Syria.
A tangled web, but it can be unwoven to make some kind of most convoluted sense.
at July 2, 2008 11:01 AM
As I posted on another thread yesterday. What we call democracy cannot and will not mix with Islam. The two are mutually exclusive morally, economically, socially and spiritually.
So, the idea that we can go into Iraq and turn them around by setting up a democratic government is absurd. This Hesbullah AKA Iranian activity is more than kill as many Americans as you can. Killing Americans in their God given right, it also strengthens there hand with the locals. This is just stage setting for when we pull out. Then they will setup a clone state of Iran.
What the other Muslim states feel about this maybe something we can us to our advantage. I am not talking about converting them to democracy. Statically Muslims kill more of their kind that infidels. Get them fighting with one another seem like a great tactic.
As Hugh described the political kaleidoscope if Lebanon. Let's fulminate a colored spectrum of infighting, deception and chaos.
Posted by: Im.mad.as.HELL! at July 2, 2008 12:28 PM
Nasrallah the lead jihadist of Hezbollah, is not only long winded, he is boring. That does not make him less dangerous. All of Islams religious leaders are boring, and dangerous. It has to do with the Islamic texts. With the core of Islam itself.
It has been said of old, that the gods created the world and then they laughed. A cosmic joke.
With Islam, Allah created the world, frowned, and began handing out punishments. The threats start in Chap two of Allah's book.
No joking around allowed. This 'dead' seriousness,
is what makes Nasrallah and his brothers dangerous.
The US should make a strategic redeployment, not surrender, but this is not going to happen. Iraq has met 15 of the 18 benchmarks required, the death toll in Iraq is lower. The surge may or may not be responsible. But will get credit anyway.
The US cannot stay in Iraq forever playing the role of supervisor in a mental institution. The sooner US troops leave the lunar-tic asylum, the better...
at July 2, 2008 12:34 PM
This is the same Hezbollah whom Baby Bush and Cowardeezza Rice rescued from Israel 2 years ago with their UN cease-fire resolution, AFTER Hezbollah blew up 3 US Embassies and 241 US Marines, hijacked TWA 487, held American hostages for 7 years, executing 2 and torturing 2 others to death, and, undoubtedly, aided the 9/11 hijackers. If our Cowards-in-Chief, Republican and Democrat, keep rewarding Hezbollah for mass murders and torture-murders of Americans, what is the reason for Hezbollah to quit?
And our cowardly so-called "generals", the top US military brass, are only good for murdering Serb Christians and brutally eradicating Chritianity from Kosovo.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
Posted by: Enragedsince1999 at July 2, 2008 6:23 PM
No one else? No one else since late February 2004, almost every day, in every way, at this very site?HughPosted by: Hugh
I was referring to outside our sand box. For instance, Rabbi Lapin is someone heard on radio, and with a Conservative audience. He once threw the challenge to callers to explain what the current objective is of American troops in Iraq, and they either failed, or came out with objectives which he pointed out were not the job of the US military.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 5, 2008 4:55 AM
Iraq did have nuclear yellow cake and could have used it to cause terror in Israel.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/07/05/saddam-uranium.html#articlecomments
Posted by: James Martel at July 6, 2008 12:29 AM
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