Back in August, just before he was murdered, free-lance reporter Steven Vincent wrote about how the Iraqi town of Basra was being infiltrated by the extremist forces of Moktada al-Sadr.
In May, the city’s police chief told a British newspaper that half of his 7,000-man force was affiliated with religious parties. This may have been an optimistic estimate: one young Iraqi officer told me that “75 percent of the policemen I know are with Moktada al-Sadr – he is a great man.” And unfortunately, the British seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
The fact that the British are in effect strengthening the hand of Shiite organizations is not lost on Basra’s residents.
“No one trusts the police,” one Iraqi journalist told me. “If our new ayatollahs snap their fingers, thousands of police will jump.” Mufeed al-Mushashaee, the leader of a liberal political organization called the Shabanea Rebellion, told me that he felt that “the entire force should be dissolved and replaced with people educated in human rights and democracy.”
Unfortunately, this is precisely what the British aren’t doing.
I wrote here that murderers were taking over Basra right under the noses of the Brits. Soon after this article was printed, Steven Vincent was murdered by that very same police force. And not long after that, the false peace that the British forces had been enjoying was shattered.
Early in September, Basra's police Captain told of an attack on a British diplomatic team .
A roadside bomb hit a convoy of vehicles Wednesday in the southern city of Basra, causing casualties. Officials in London denied initial reports that a British diplomatic convoy had come under attack.
Iraqi police Capt. Mushtaq Talib said four people were killed in the blast and that it struck a British diplomatic convoy. Talib said the victims nationalities were not known. Khudief Sabih, a schoolboy who claimed to have witnessed the attack, also said four people were killed.
The report was denied by Britain. But later that month, British forces had to effect a jail break to rescue two of their soldiers
British tanks smashed into an Iraqi prison to free two undercover British soldiers seized yesterday by Iraqi forces, an interior ministry official and witnesses said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said British troops using half a dozen tanks stormed the jail in the southern city of Basra...
A British embassy spokeswoman confirmed two British soldiers had been freed from jail by British forces in Basra but gave no details of how they had been freed.
Hours earlier, angry crowds attacked a British tank with petrol bombs and rocks in Basra after Iraqi forces detained the undercover soldiers.
It seems any illusions of peace in Basra was now gone for good.
Almost one year ago I wrote in a piece called "Proxy War" about the connection between al Sadr, whose thugs have been gaining greater control in Basra, and Iran. And now, it seems, the Brits are making this same connection.
Britain has accused Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard of supplying explosives technology to insurgents in Iraq who have killed several British soldiers in a wave of attacks this year.
There is also evidence that Tehran's ideological army was in contact with Sunni Muslim rebel groups fighting foreign forces in Iraq, a senior British official in London told reporters on condition of anonymity.
The comments came as Britain's embassy in Tehran angrily denied claims in the Iranian press that it was stirring up unrest in the oil-rich southwest of the Islamic republic, just across the border from where British soldiers are based in Iraq.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi dismissed what he called the British "lies" and called for proof.
I suppose these guys captured in Iraq were just pretending to be Iranian Intelligence officers.
More disturbingly,
Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has placed the military firmly in control of his nation's nuclear program, undercutting his government's claim that the program is intended for civilian use, according to a leading opposition group.
Leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the force created specifically to defend the 1979 Islamic revolution, now dominate Iran's Supreme National Security Council, the country's top foreign policy-making body under the constitution.
Iran has claimed for years that its nuclear program was for civilian use only, and Britain has worked hard and optimistically, along with France and Germany to negotiate assurances that this was in fact true.
I guess that's up in smoke as well.
It's now pretty clear who's in charge of Iran's nuclear program and it ain't civilians.
And while Iran pleads innocent, they keep a close eye on what's going on in the US
In remarks that appeared on Ansar-e Hezbollah website on Sunday, a top official of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said the devastating hurricane had exposed America’s vulnerabilities.
“The mismanagement and the mishandling of the acute psychological problems brought about by Hurricane Katrina clearly showed that others can, at any given time, create a devastated war-zone in any part of the U.S.”, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, the official spokesman of the IRGC, said.
“If the U.S. attacks Iran, each of America’s states will face a crisis the size of Katrina”, he said, referring to the massive hurricane which hit the southern coast of the United States. “The smallest mistake by America in this regard will result in every single state in that country turning into a disaster zone”.
Was that a threat?
There is little doubt that Iran is at war with the idea and ideals of freedom. They undermine its implementation wherever possible throughout the region and possibly beyond. They are killers, and murderers and a terrorist-supporting state.
Make no mistake Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, the US will not allow Iran to make nuclear weapons.
Period.
And don't forget, you've now pissed off the British too.
Update: Gateway Pundit points out that Saudi Arabia is accusing Iran of meddling in Iraq as well. (via Instapundit)
