As reported by the London Arabic newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Sadr visited Iran in late 2003 and met with General Suleimani. At the onset of al-Sadr's uprising, the paper reported that Qods Force had set up training camps at Qasr Shireen, Ilam, and Hamid in southern Iran along the Iraqi border to train the radical cleric's Mahdi Army and financed his campaign to the tune of $80,000,000. A March 2005 report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) treated most charges of Iranian meddling in Iraq with skepticism, but quoted one E.U. diplomat as saying that "[Qassem] Suleimani seemingly had an agenda to support Muqtada al-Sadr in the Najaf crisis. . . . But as the war went on, he withdrew his support." The report cited another diplomat as saying that Iran had provided al-Sadr with "funding and arms."
IN MAY 2004, al-Sharq al-Awsat published a story claiming that members of Qods Force had attempted to provide both explosives and upwards of $900,000 to Abu Musab Zarqawi, with the intention of him carrying out attacks on U.S. and European embassies and commercial centers in five Gulf states. According to the newspaper, the plot was thwarted by Iranian intelligence at the behest of the-then President Khatami, who likely recognized that such action could easily result in a US reprisal against Iran. At Khatami's direction, Iranian intelligence arrested a number of al Qaeda operatives as well as a Qods Force official, yet no actions were taken against General Suleimani and he remains in command of
the elite military unit to this day.
In August 2004, al-Sharq al-Awsat cited an official who had attended an Iranian military seminar in which General Suleimani stated that Zarqawi and 20 senior members of the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam are allowed to enter Iran whenever they want through border points between Halabja and Ilam in Iraq. When asked why Iran would support Zarqawi given his anti-Shiite activities, Suleimani stated that Zarqawi's actions in Iraq "serve the supreme interests of Iran" by preventing the creation of a pro-U.S. government. These remarks seem to square with the views of the ICG report on Iranian meddling in Iraq which, while largely skeptical, concluded that Kurdish assertions about Iran's Revolutionary Guards backing Ansar al-Islam (described by the U.S. State Department as "closely allied with al-Qa'ida and Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's group" as well as "one of the leading groups engaged in anti-Coalition attacks in Iraq") "most likely have merit."
Thus far, discussions over the proper course of US policy towards Iran have primarily focused on the regime's nuclear program. Perhaps the activities of General Suleimani and Qods Force should be included in that discussion, too.
Dan Darling is a counter-terrorism consultant for the Manhattan Institute's Center for Policing Terrorism.
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