US Accuses Iran Military Of Plotting In Iraq.

The US military says it has evidence linking a group of Iranians and some Iraqi associates, detained in recent raids, to attacks against US forces. The military also said that some of those detained had been involved in shipments of weapons to groups in Iraq.

In its first official confirmation of the raids, the US military on Dec. 26 said it had confiscated maps, videos, photographs and documents in a raid on a site in Baghdad. The military said that it had arrested five Iranians and that three of them had been released.

The Bush administration has described the two Iranians still being held as senior military officials from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The New York Times on Dec. 27 quoted Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for the US command in Iraq, as saying the military had "gathered specific intelligence from highly credible sources that linked individuals and locations with criminal activities against Iraqi civilians, security forces and coalition force personnel. Some of that specific intelligence dealt explicitly with force-protection issues, including attacks on MNF-I forces". MNF-I stands for Multinational Force-Iraq.

Washington has asserted before that Iran has been "interfering" in Iraq, but the arrests - in the Baghdad compound of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, one of the country's most powerful Shi'ite leaders - were the first since the US invasion in which it has offered evidence of a link.

The Iraqi government has made extensive efforts to engage Iran in security matters in recent months and the arrests of the Iranians could scuttle those efforts.

Some Iraqis questioned the timing of the arrests, saying that the Bush administration had political motives.

The Bush administration has rejected domestic and foreign pressure to open negotiations with Tehran and Damascus on Iraq.

The Iraqi government has been silent about the arrests, but some officials on Dec. 26 spoke of intense behind-the-scenes talks by its political elite over how to handle the situation.

During a visit to Tehran, President Jalal Talabani had invited the two Iranians to Baghdad to discuss the security situation there, his spokesman said on Dec. 24. But by Dec. 26, other Iraqi officials were questioning whether Talabani had in fact made such an invitation. Some Iraqis speculated that the arrests were intended to derail efforts by Iraq to deal with Iran on their own by making the government look weak.

Before dawn on Dec. 21, US forces raided "a site in Baghdad", but declined to release further details. Iraqi leaders recently said the site was the compound of Hakim, who met with President George W. Bush in the White House on Dec. 4. But a spokesman for Hakim said he had not heard of a raid on his compound.

Caldwell's statement indicated that the location itself was of central importance. It said the military gathered "specific intelligence from highly credible sources that linked individuals and locations with criminal activities". The crimes were committed against Iraqi civilians, security forces and Americans.

The allegations, if true, would mark the first time since the US invasion that Iranian officials were discovered in the act of planning military action inside Iraq.

Tehran has denied the Iranians were doing anything illegal in Iraq.