Iranian Involvement In Iraq.

Citing US officials familiar with the case, The New York Times on March 27 said on July 19, 2005, the US had secretly sent Iran a diplomatic protest charging that Tehran was supplying lethal roadside explosive devices to Shi'ite extremists in Iraq. The protest - blandly titled "Message from the United States to the Government of Iran" - informed the Iranians that a British soldier had been killed by one of the devices in Maysan Province in south-eastern Iraq.

The complaint said the Shi'ite militants who planted the device had long-standing ties to Iran's IRGC, and that the IRGC and Iran-backed Hizbullah militia had been training Iraqi Shi'ites in Iran and supplying them with bomb-making equipment. The protest added: "We will continue to judge Iran by its actions in Iraq". The paper said: "Iran flatly denied the charges in a diplomatic reply it sent the following month, and it continues to deny any role in the supply of the lethal weapons".

The confidential exchange foreshadowed the more public confrontation between the Bush administration and Iran which has been unfolding since December. In the past four months, the Bush administration has sought to put new pressure on Tehran, through military raids of Iranian operatives in Iraq, the despatch of two US aircraft carriers to the Gulf, and increasingly public complaints about Iran's role in arming Shi'ite militias.

US actions prompted criticism that the White House was trying to find a scapegoat for military setbacks in Iraq, or to prepare for war with Iran. The NYT said: "A review of the administration's accusations of an Iranian weapons supply role - including interviews with officials in Washington and Baghdad, critics of the administration and independent experts - shows...intelligence that Iran was providing lethal assistance to Shi'ite militias has been a major worry for more than two years". The concern intensified towards end-2006 as US casualties from the explosive devices, known as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) began to climb.

Excluding casualty data for Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, where the EFPs have not been found, the devices accounted for about 30% of US and allied deaths for the last quarter of 2006. Some Democrats in Congress, while critical of many aspects of Bush administration policy towards Iraq and Iran, say they are persuaded by the intelligence pointing to an Iranian role in supplying EFPs. Debate remains about whether Iran's top leaders ordered the EFP supply, about whether the Iranian-supplied devices can be copied in Iraq and about US policy towards Tehran.

In January, the number of US and allied troops killed by EFP hits was less than half the total in December. That trend continued in February. The NYT said some US officials suggested this may be a "response to their efforts to highlight the role Iran is accused of playing", but another factor may be that many Shi'ite militants have chosen not to fight US troops. But the EFP remains a big danger. On March 15, an EFP attack in eastern Baghdad killed four US servicemen and wounded two others.

EFPs fire a semi-molten copper slug which cuts through the armour on a Humvee, then shatters inside the vehicle, creating a deadly hail of hot metal that causes especially gruesome wounds even when it does not kill. Many of the EFPs encountered by US forces in Iraq are difficult to detect and extremely destructive. Because they fire from the side of the road, there is no need to dig a hole to plant them, so they are suited for urban settings. Because they are set off by a passive infrared sensor, the kind of motion detector which turns on security lights, they cannot be countered by electronic jamming.

Adversaries have used the EFP in new ways. On Feb. 12, a British Air Force C-130 was damaged by two EFP arrays as it landed on an airstrip in Maysan Province, the first time the device was used to attack an aircraft. Allied forces later destroyed the aircraft with a 450-kilo bomb to keep militants from pilfering equipment.

EFPs produce much more casualties per attack than other types of roadside bombs. The NYT quoted Lt Col Kevin Farrell, who commanded the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 64th Armour, in 2005, when a penetrator punched through the skirt armour of one of the battalion's M-1 tanks and cracked its hull, as saying: "They were a new type of threat with a great potential for damage. They accounted for a sizable percentage of our casualties. Based on searches of the Baghdad environment we occupied and multiple local Iraqi sources, we believed that they came from Iran".

US and British forces have been the primary targets in the EFPs, but the devices have also been used against Iraqi security forces. In June 2005, a Japanese convoy near Samawa was struck by a roadside bomb which used a remote control firing device typically employed by Iran or Hizbullah. Concerned by the attacks, the British government protested through diplomatic channels in Tehran in that year.

Some US Democratic lawmakers critical of the Bush administration's Iraq policies say they now accept there is a connection between Iran and the EFP attacks in Iraq, though they emphasise that Iran is not the primary reason for instability in Iraq.

In a report out in December, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) called for opening talks with Iran and suggested Iran could take steps to improve security in Iraq by stemming "the flow of equipment, technology and training to any group resorting to violence in Iraq". The NYT quoted former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, a co-chairman of the ISG, as saying: "The fact that Iran may be supplying lethal equipment is all the more reason to deal with them. We do think it fortifies the case for engaging Iran".