NCRI – The United States commander in Iraq says the kidnappers who snatched five British contractors last month were funded, trained and armed by Iran.
In comments published in an early edition of The Times on Wednesday, General David Petraeus identified the group as a secret cell of the Mahdi Army, a Shi’ite militia in Iraq loyal to the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
He said "They are not rank-and-file Jaish al-Mahdi. They are trained in Iran, equipped with Iranian (weapons), and advised by Iran."
He said "The Iranian involvement here we have found to be much, much more significant than we thought before. They have, since about the summer of 2004, played a very, very important role in training in Iran, funding, arming."
"We think that it is the same network that killed our soldiers in Karbala in an operation back in January," he said. Gen Petraeus considered the unit also to be behind attacks on British armoured vehicles using Iranian made weapons.
