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Posted

For months I've been hearing about Iranian personnel and weapons (such as IEDs) being poured over the Iraqi border to be used against U.S. troops in Iraq. Why can't these be whacked?

Posted
For months I've been hearing about Iranian personnel and weapons (such as IEDs) being poured over the Iraqi border to be used against U.S. troops in Iraq. Why can't these be whacked?

 

Too much border, too few people to check everyone crossing it.

Posted
Too much border, too few people to check everyone crossing it.

 

No desire to push matters further right now than crying "foul" at the daily press briefing.

Posted
Iraq: Rise of a Secret Unit

 

Newsweek

Oct. 1, 2007 issue - In his report to Congress earlier this month, Gen. David Petraeus claimed that Iran has a deadly new ally in its proxy war against U.S. forces in Iraq: a secret unit of the militant Lebanese Hizbullah movement called Department 2800. It was created, Petraeus said, "to support the training, arming, funding and, in some cases, direction" of Shia militia cells and turn them into a "Hizbullah-like" movement opposing U.S. forces and the Iraqi government. According to Petraeus, Department 2800's partner is the Quds Force, a secretive branch of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's principal internal-security apparatus. Petraeus also told Congress that U.S. forces had managed to capture the "deputy commander" of Department 2800. A U.S. counterterrorism official, who requested anonymity when discussing sensitive material, told NEWSWEEK that the operative was detained in March while he was canvassing insurgent cells in Iraq, helping them set up weapons deliveries, offering strategies for attacks and even arranging for some insurgents to attend training inside Iran. The Hizbullah rep, whose name was not disclosed, was also allegedly involved in planning a January attack in Karbala during which insurgents dressed as U.S. soldiers entered a secure compound and kidnapped, then later killed, five Americans.

 

Very interesting report. It could signify a greater depth of Hizballah involvement in Iraq than previously realized, and you can bet this would not have happened without major Iranian backing.

Guest JamesG123
Posted

The US can't even control its own borders to keep drugs and illegal aliens out. What makes you think it could do a damn thing different in Iraq?

Posted

Well...Israel and us Europeans will be happy if Hibollah would turn it's attention towards Iraq. Or anywhere...like Antarctica..

 

Only way (apart from outright war with Iran) to stop Iranian support to Shia militants it to make it very expensive and not cost-effective to them. That'd require sanctions, seizing assets, cover action against them etc. Somehow I don't see that as easily to accomplish. But crazy as Iranian leadership seems to be, they do understand force if they do not understand talk.

Posted

There's all sorts of things we could do that would be effective and not too difficult from a log/operations standpoint, none of which we have the will to do politically or socially.

 

Best IMO would be to establish a DMZ along the border with a limited # of well established CP's for crossings and turn the rest into a USAF/USN freefire dead zone. S/F....Ken M

Posted

If we took out Iran's electrical power system and pretroleum refineries, and prevented them from exporting petroleum until they behaved, I think they would begin to behave.

 

Not that the United States has any serious intent to win the war.

Posted
Well...Israel and us Europeans will be happy if Hibollah would turn it's attention towards Iraq. Or anywhere...like Antarctica..

 

And hostage the world with "The Al-Jihad Flame Bomb will melt the Southern Ice Caps and drown all your heathen cities!"? I'd rather they stay where they are and get bombed to itty-bitty pieces. ;)

 

Kenneth Katz: No no no... it'll just drag the UN and another corrupt "Oil for Food" program will creep out from that mess....

Posted

Looks like they captured some hard evidence of the Iranians passing IED kit to the Taliban about a month back.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../wafghan104.xml

 

Iran 'arming Taliban with roadside bombs'

By Tom Coghlan in Kabul

Last Updated: 10:43am BST 04/10/2007

 

Iran is supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan with the same bomb-making equipment it provides to insurgents in Iraq, according to British military intelligence officers

 

US Army General Dan McNeill, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, said that the discovery of more than 50 roadside bombs and timers in lorries crossing the border from Iran last month proves that Iran's Quds Revolutionary Guards are actively supporting the Taliban.

 

The allegation will add to fears that the escalating war of words between Iran and the West could end in armed conflict between the two.

 

British special forces, believed to be from the Special Boat Service, played a prominent role in tracking and intercepting two lorries that crossed from Iran into Afghanistan's Farah Province on Sept 5.

 

"I cannot see how it is possible for at least the Iranian military, probably the Quds force, to not have known of this convoy," said Gen McNeill.

 

He claimed the vehicles contained materials to make explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), a type of roadside bomb. Britain and America have accused Iran of supplying such bombs to Iraqi insurgents.

 

Gen McNeill added: "The observation of a number of British officers who served in southern Iraq was that [the bomb timers] were relatively common there and that they originated from Iran."

 

A spokesman for the British embassy in Kabul said yesterday: "This confirms our view that elements within Iran are supporting the Taliban. We have previously raised the issue of arms to the Taliban with the Iranians and will

 

 

continue to do so." Last month, Lt Col Patrick Sanders, the commander of British forces in Basra, said troops there were engaged in a "proxy war" with Iran, which was supplying Shia militias.

 

EFPs work by concentrating explosive force through a concave copper plate, which is projected as a molten missile through a vehicle's armour.

 

To work properly, the components have to be made to factory specifications.

 

Prior to September's find, there had been two discoveries of EFPs in Afghanistan. While they raised suspicions of Iranian involvement, they were crude by comparison and the Nato commander had never before yesterday pointed the finger directly at the Iranian military.

 

Gen McNeill added: "These EFPs have caused me some anxiety. I would say whoever put these together had the benefit of not only knowledge, but also some technology and machines."

 

Iran, a Shia Muslim state, has denied that it was supplying the Taliban, pointing out that it was a Sunni militia. Iranian officials allege that American and British rhetoric is part of a propaganda campaign to build a case for war over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

 

The Americans have recently begun work to expand Shindand airbase, in western Afghanistan, which is within 50 miles of Iran's border.

 

Afghan officials insist that this is in preparation for Shindand becoming the main base for the newly formed Afghan Army Air Corps and say they have a written undertaking by the US government not to use the bases for military operations against Iran.

 

Last month, the new head of the Quds Revolutionary Guard force, Gen Mohammed Ali Jaafari, warned that a US attack on Iran would be met with a response directed against US interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

"If the enemy wants to take any impudent action, the Islamic republic will for sure give a decisive and teeth-breaking response," he said.

Posted

Did they rename the SBS to "Service" recently, or is still actually "Squadron"?

 

David

Posted
Did they rename the SBS to "Service" recently, or is still actually "Squadron"?

 

David

 

Nah, it's been service for a while. You mistake it to Special Boat (Raiding) Squadron of WW II under Jellicoe that was very active especially in Adriatic and around Yugoslavian coast.

Posted
Nah, it's been service for a while. You mistake it to Special Boat (Raiding) Squadron of WW II under Jellicoe that was very active especially in Adriatic and around Yugoslavian coast.

I'm fairly certain that there was some debate about the name back in 1982, although maybe that was referring back to the unit you mention.

 

David

Posted

It changed from SB Squadron to SB Service in 1987 when Director Special Forces was created, putting the SAS and SBS under one commander.

Posted
About the only thing that would work would be to set up emigre groups in Iraq, and send infiltrators across the border and start blowing them up. For a whole variety of reasons that isnt going to happen. Bet it would work though.

 

The Kurds were used for that by both the US Government and the Iraqis under Saddam. Wouldn't it though, rather destroy the principles under which the War on Terrorism are being waged?

Guest JamesG123
Posted

Fight fire with fire?

 

A bit hypocritical true. The US pretty much support(ed) anyone who claim(ed) they don't like Iran without thinking to much about what they do with it or the ramifications and global side effects. A typical shortcoming of US foreign policy...

They have to do something truly atrocious (PKK) to get on the bad side of the US state dept.

Posted
There's all sorts of things we could do that would be effective and not too difficult from a log/operations standpoint, none of which we have the will to do politically or socially.

 

Best IMO would be to establish a DMZ along the border with a limited # of well established CP's for crossings and turn the rest into a USAF/USN freefire dead zone. S/F....Ken M

 

All very well for free fire dead zones but how long will it take to tell the mostly iliterate Iraqi tribes who live on the border to abandon their tribal lands which cross into Iran they have had for 1000s of years, long before international boundries were established. I dont see them warming to that suggestion. The problem of cross border smuggling will never be iradicated, its been going on for centuries and is the way of living for most Iraqis living in the border region. ( not the smuggling of lethal aid but of more mundane things such as food and animals ect)

Guest JamesG123
Posted
[/b]

All very well for free fire dead zones but how long will it take to tell the mostly iliterate Iraqi tribes who live on the border to abandon their tribal lands which cross into Iran they have had for 1000s of years, long before international boundries were established. I dont see them warming to that suggestion. The problem of cross border smuggling will never be iradicated, its been going on for centuries and is the way of living for most Iraqis living in the border region. ( not the smuggling of lethal aid but of more mundane things such as food and animals ect)

 

If you look at sat photos of the border between the two, its already (and still is) pretty much a scarred no-man's land for much of its length from the Iran-Iraq war.

Posted
If you look at sat photos of the border between the two, its already (and still is) pretty much a scarred no-man's land for much of its length from the Iran-Iraq war.

Depends which areas you refer too. There is obviously alot of UXO still lying around, as demonstrated by my battlegroup, who had the pleasure of calling in a B1 to deal with a cache of 25ton earlier last month and that was one bunker!!. Its also obvious that the locals also know the safe routes through the areas also having lived with it for nearly 20 years. We were forever bumping into villages dotted around Maysaan along the border too. Very friendly people them Bedoin, forever trying to feed us even though they had nothing but a scraggy dog.

 

( all of the above freely available on the net)

Posted
Entirely, which is why it will never happen. On the other hand would blowing up insurgents and their supporters be morally less acceptable than waiting for them to blow up some hapless Iraqis in a car bomb?

 

My point was the use of cross-border incursions by indigenous forces to do it, rather than doing it. Doing it, makes good sense. Doing it with groups who would in all likelihood resort to the tactics of terror to carry their fight into Iran, doesn't. As I pointed out, it would undermine the principles that the War on Terror is being fought for.

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