NCRI – The members of Iraqi “Special Groups” are trained at several camps near Tehran that are overseen by the Qods Force of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, The New York Times reported today.
A US official told the newspaper that members of Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqis in these camps in Iran, according to information obtained by the US military during questioning of four Iraqis captured between last September and December after they had returned from training in Iran.
“The Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camps offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways,” The New York Times reported.
American officials say that Iranian regime is now training small groups of Iraqis in camps in Iran, where they are taught how to train others. They then return from Iran to Iraq to teach others how to fire rockets and mortars, fight as snipers or assemble explosively formed penetrates, a particularly lethal type of roadside bomb made of Iranian components. The officials describe the new approach by Iranian regime as “training the trainers.”
The captured men described themselves in the accounts as part of a class of 16 militants who crossed into Iran from southern Iraq and were taken to a camp near Tehran, where they studied in a classroom and in the field. Some had been in Iran several times as part of a program that American officials said was aimed at turning them into “master trainers” and which could last several years.
According to the captured Iraqis, other nationals were also being trained at the camps in Iran but each group was kept separate and was not allowed to contact others.
An American official said that an Iraqi who facilitated the trained groups travel to Iraq was also captured and confessed that he had been paid by an Iranian.
According to the New York Times, The American officials have given the information obtained from the captured Iraqis to the Iraqi government, along with other data about captured Iranian arms, before last weeks travel by an Iraqi delegation to Tehran.
