إعـــــــلان

**Gladiators** · 21-07-2011, 05:45 PM

تقرير مهم ومفصل لوكال الأسوسيتد بريس للارا جاكس وقاسم عبدالزهراء،شارك في اعداده ريبيكا سانتانا من بغداد وسمير يعقوب من عمان في الاردن فيه تفاصيل زعموا انها لاعداد فصائل المقاومة الثلاث وأمور أخرى

Shiite militias step up Iraq attacks on US troops

By LARA JAKES, Associated Press – 16 hours ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — Shiite militias backed by Iran have ramped up attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, making June the deadliest month in two years for American forces. The militiamen's goal is to prevent the U.S. military from extending its presence in the country past the end of this year.
Three separate militias have been involved in the attacks, particularly a small but deadly group known as the Hezbollah Brigades, believed to be funded and trained by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard and its special operations wing, the Quds Force.
The militia attacks — mainly in the Shiite heartland in southern Iraq — raise the prospect of increased violence against Americans if a residual U.S. force remains in the country past 2011, a possibility being considered by the Baghdad government to help maintain a still fragile security.
They also point to the persistent efforts by Shiite-majority Iran, the United States' top regional rival, to influence Iraq after the Americans' exit.
In a statement targeted at the militias, Iraqi parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi called Thursday on all groups to support the government in Baghdad if it ultimately decides to ask U.S. troops to stay.
In the latest American deaths, a senior U.S. official in Baghdad said Thursday that three U.S. troops were killed a day earlier when a huge rocket known as an IRAM struck a remote desert base just a few miles (kilometers) from the Iranian border in Iraq's southern Wasit province.
The deaths brought the monthly U.S. military toll to 15, nearly all of them of them from attacks suspected to have been planned by planned by Shiite militias. That's the highest number of military deaths in Iraq since June 2009, and the most combat-related deaths since June 2008. Since March 2003, 4,469 American troops have died in Iraq.
The IRAMs are a hallmark of Hezbollah Brigades, or Kataib Hezbollah, a militia that U.S. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, the military's top spokesman in Iraq, said is almost exclusively reliant on Iran.
The Hezbollah Brigades, which has links to the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, is solely focused on attacking U.S. troops and other American personnel and claimed responsibility for a June 6 rocket attack that killed five soldiers in Baghdad.
The force, estimated at about 1,000 fighters, receives unlimited funding from Iran, an Iraqi lawmaker familiar with militia operations said. Its militants are paid between $300 to $500 each month, said a senior Iraqi intelligence official. He described the militia as the most difficult for counterterror forces to penetrate because, like al-Qaida, operatives are segregated into cells that strictly kept apart.
The lawmaker and Iraqi official, along with several U.S. officials, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.
The new spate of attacks on U.S. troops began in mid-March, after the Obama administration started hinting it would prefer to see some American troops remain in Iraq into 2012 to help preserve the nation's shaky security and stave off Iranian influence. About 46,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, and those are supposed to leave by Dec. 31 under the terms of a 2008 security agreement between Washington and Baghdad.
Also involved in anti-U.S. attacks is the Promised Day Brigade, linked to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army.
Al-Sadr holds considerable sway in Iraq's government, and U.S. officials believe the Promised Day Brigade — which is five times the size of the Hezbollah Brigades — poses more of a threat to Iraq's long-term stability than the other militias. Al-Sadr's political party holds 39 seats in parliament, and it was with his support that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was able to keep his job for a second term after 2010 elections.
Al-Sadr disarmed his Mahdi Army after it was roundly defeated by U.S. and Iraqi forces in fierce 2008 battles in the southern port city of Basra. But he created the Promised Day Brigade to keep a militia on hand to "resist the occupier," a U.S. military intelligence official said.
The force gets hundreds of millions of dollars in financial assistance, including from Iran, a large number of sympathizers in Turkey and donations from around the Muslim world, a senior Mahdi Army commander said. It is also funded by the Sadrist political organization, to which every party lawmaker and minister donates about $5,000 a month.
Iran contributes far less to the Promised Day Brigade than it does to other militias, in part because al-Sadr has avoided allowing Tehran to wield as much control over the force, said the commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the force's inner workings.
Though he lived in Iran for the last several years, officials and analysts say al-Sadr wants to keep Tehran at arm's length for political reasons amid the Iraqi public's strong nationalist feeling. Still, Iranian money and weapons continue to flow to al-Sadr because of their shared animosity against the U.S.
The third Shiite militia targeting Americans in Iraq is Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or Band of the People of Righteousness, a splinter Sadrist group that now competes with the Promised Day Brigade for support.
It does not have al-Sadr's backing, and an Iraqi close to the extremist group said it relies on Iran for support, including around $5 million in cash and weapons each month. Officials believe there are fewer than 1,000 Asaib Ahl al-Haq militiamen, and their leaders live in Iran.
The Iraqi intelligence official estimated about 3,000 Shiite militiamen — two-thirds of them Mahdi Army — were jailed by U.S. forces during the height of the war but later released by Iraq's government because of a lack of evidence to hold them. Most of them have made their way back to the front lines, the official said, more fueled by anger at American troops than ever.
Former Marine Ashwin Madia, who served in Iraq in 2005-06 and is interim chairman of VoteVets.org, a veterans advocacy group that has been critical of the Iraq war, said the deadly month should convince President Barack Obama to pull U.S. troops out by the end of the year as promised.
"If we stay in Iraq past our deadline, there is no reason to believe that violent attacks won't further increase, leading to more American deaths," Madia said Thursday.
Buchanan, the U.S. military spokesman, said the attacks are "not going to have an impact on us leaving or staying" because that decision will mostly be up to Iraq's government.
But he raised the specter of Iran using the militias to keep Iraq unstable so it can extert more influence once U.S. troops leave.
"Their overall preference is a weak Iraq," he said.

Associated Press Writers Rebecca Santana in Baghdad and Sameer N. Yacoub in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...0536dfaa60fd65
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43598044
http://www.timesonline.com/news/worl...9a8198260.html
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7...US-troops.html

ترجمة موقع كتائب حزب الله لجزء من التقرير
http://www.kataibhizbollah.org/ar/pa...ws.php?nid=173

التقرير الاول للارا جاكس في 30/6/2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...orH_story.html
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/30...illed-in-iraq/

تقرير في الواشنطن بوست لتيم كريغ 30/6/2011وإد أوكيفي فيه تفاصيل متنوعة ومعلومات عديدة منها أن الهجوم الذي قتل فيه 3 جنود جرح ما ما يزيد عن دزينة من الجنود الأمريكيين
By Tim Craig and Ed O’Keefe, Published: June 30

BAGHDAD — Three U.S. soldiers were killed this week in a rocket attack at a U.S. base near the Iranian border, the military said Thursday, bringing June’s death toll to 15 and marking the bloodiest month for U.S. troops in Iraq in two years.

U.S. military commanders have said in recent months that they feared such an increase in violence would accompany the planned withdrawal of most American troops by the end of the year. Military officials in Baghdad and at the Pentagon blamed the mounting death toll on the growing sophistication of weapons that insurgents and Iranian-backed militia groups are using, including powerful rockets, armor-piercing grenades and jam-resistant roadside bombs suspected of coming from Iran.
The heightened danger underscores the volatile security situation in Iraq, amid ongoing debate here and in Washington about whether any U.S. troops should remain in the country.

June’s death toll was the highest since 15 troops died here in June 2009, according to iCasualties.org, a ********* site that tracks U.S. military deaths. Fourteen of the deaths were combat-related, the highest since 23 soldiers and Marines were killed in action in June 2008, the site said.

During much of the insurgency that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, U.S. military commanders blamed Sunni-dominated terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq for many of the attacks against American troops. But as the U.S. military has adjusted its tactics, largely withdrawing from cities and improving its technological capacity to combat deadly roadside bombs and suicide attacks, officials say it has become far harder for loosely organized Sunni militias to strike out against the roughly 46,000 U.S. troops in the country.

Now, according to Maj. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, chief spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, the primary threat to the Americans comes from three Shiite militia groups operating in Iraq, which officials said they believe are being trained and equipped by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps special forces.

“All of them receive at least indirect support from elements in Iran,” Buchanan said in an interview this week.

In early June, what U.S. officials believe was a sophisticated rocket slammed into a joint Iraqi-U.S. military base in eastern Baghdad, killing six American soldiers in the deadliest single attack on forces here in more than two years. In addition, three U.S. troops were killed by roadside bombs in June.

Last week, an American contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development was killed when suspected Shiite militants attached a bomb to a car he was riding in near a Baghdad university. And Sunday, two U.S. troops were killed when an apparent armor-piercing grenade was lobbed at their vehicle.

Although the U.S. military did not release specifics on Wednesday’s attack pending notification of next of kin, officials familiar with the incident said the rocket was so powerful that it also wounded more than a dozen soldiers, several critically.

There was no immediate assertion of responsibility for that attack. However, Kataib Hezbollah, one of the Shiite militia groups mentioned by Buchanan, said earlier last month that it was responsible for the attack that killed six soldiers.

Buchanan said there is “no doubt” that Kataib Hezbollah “follows orders” from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force, a highly specialized unit responsible for operations outside Iran. “Their leadership lives in Iran, they are directly trained by the Quds Force and they are supplied by them,” Buchanan said.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, outgoing Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates expressed similar frustration with Iran’s ties to the Shiite militias operating in Iraq. Iran is “facilitating weapons, they’re facilitating training, there’s new technology that they are providing,” Gates said. “They’re stepping this up, and it’s a concern.”

Buchanan said efforts to protect U.S. forces in Iraq are further complicated by rival Shiite militias that are vying to emerge as the dominant Shiite insurgency group in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...prH_story.html
http://www.twincities.com/national/c...nclick_check=1

ترجمة تقرير الواشنطن بوست

حزيران كان الاخطر لقواتنا في العراق وايران وراء تصاعد العمليات

2011-07-01

اولت اكبر صحيفتين اميركيتين وهما نيويورك تايمز والواشنطن بوست اهتماما خاصا بتصاعد عمليات استهداف القوات الاميركية في العراق خلال شهر حزيران، وارتفاع اعداد القتلى في صفوف هذه القوات في وقت لم يعلن عن موقف رسمي عراقي نهائي بشأن تمديد بقاء قوات اميركية بعد نهاية السنة.

وقالت صحيفة نيويورك تايمز في تقرير لها من بغداد انه وبعد اعلان الجيش الاميركي عن مقتل ثلاثة جنود اميركان الخميس فإن عدد القتلى ارتفع الى خمسة عشر جنديا خلال شهر حزيران وحده من هذا العام وهو الاعلى منذ حزيران عام 2008 اذ كان عدد القتلى فيه 23 جنديا.

وتقول الصحيفة ان الزيادة في عدد الاصابات يتم ارجاعها الى الهجمات بالصواريخ وقذائف الهاون التي تستهدف القواعد الاميركية التي تقوم بها ميليشيات شيعية، في وقت تتعرض القوافل الاميركية الى العبوات الناسفة ، وكل ذلك يأتي في مسعى من المقاتلين للاعلان عن مسؤوليتهم عن اخراج القوات الاميركية.

وتعد الصحيفة ان الاصابات تُعد خطرة اذا اخذنا بالإعتبار انخفاض عدد القوات الاميركية من 160 الف الى نحو 50 الف جندي.

وقد وقع الهجوم الاعنف في السادس من حزيران عندما اطلق مقاتلون صواريخ على قاعدة اميركية ما نتج عنه مقتل ستة جنود وهي العملية التي اعلنت كتائب حزب الله مسؤوليتها عنها.

وتقول الصحيفة انه وبالرغم من اعلان الرئيس اوباما في آب الماضي عن انتهاء المهمات القتالية الاميركية في العراق وتحول القوات الى وظائف استشارية، إلا ان الاخطار ما تزال تحدق بالقوات سواء أكانت في قواعدها ام اثناء تجوالها.

ووفقا للاتفاقية الامنية ـ حسب الصحيفة ـ فإن القوات الاميركية قد تم تقييدها بشدة بشأن امكان الرد من طرف واحد عن تعرضها للمخاطر ما زاد من انزعاج وغضب افراد الجيش الاميركي. وان ذلك يحدث في وقت تتردد الحكومة العراقية باستهداف الميليشيات الشيعية التي لها صلات ببعض مسؤولي هذه الحكومة. وان القوات الامنية – حسب الصحيفة ايضا- لا تستهدف الميليشيات الشيعية بالقوة نفسها التي استهدفت فيها منظمة القاعدة في العراق.

من جانبها اشارت صحيفة الواشنطن بوست في تقريرها من بغداد الى ان المسؤولين العسكريين الاميركان في بغداد وفي وزارة الدفاع الاميركية ينحون باللائمة على التطور الذي شهدته الاسلحة المستخدمة ضد القوات الاميركية، بما في ذلك الصواريخ القوية والقنابل الخارقة للدروع ومتفجرات الشوارع التي ربما تأتي من ايران، في زيادة الخسائر في الارواح في صفوف القوات.

وترى الصحيفة ان معظم الهجمات التي اعقبت غزو عام 2003 كان من تدبير مجموعة القاعدة، لكن مع تعديل القوات الاميركية لتكتيكاتها وانسحابها بشكل كبير من المدن العراقية وقيامها بتحسين قدراتها التقنية لمواجهة العبوات المزروعة في الطرقات والهجمات الانتحارية فإنه بات من الصعب على القاعدة التي تحولت الى منظمة مفككة ان تضرب هذه القوات التي انخفض عديدها الى 46 الف جندي فقط.

اما الآن - حسب الصحيفة- فإن الهجمات وفقا لما قاله اللواء جيفري إس . بيوكانان، الناطق الرئيس للجيش الأميركيِ في العراق، فان التهديد الرئيس الذي يواجه الاميركان يأتي من ثلاث ميليشيات شيعية تعمل في العراق، ويعتقد المسؤولون الاميركان ان هذه المجموعات يتم تدريبها وتجهيزها من القوات الخاصة في الحرس الثوري الايراني. وانهم" يحظون على الاقل بدعم غير مباشر من عناصر في ايران" حسب بيوكانان.

وتمضي الصحيفة في القول ان المسؤولين الاميركان يعتقدون ان ما جرى في السادس من حزيران وتسبب بمقتل ستة جنود اميركان كان اصابة القاعدة المشتركة للقوات العراقية – الاميركية بصاروخ متطور مما يعد الهجوم الاخطر منذ سنتين اضافة لانفجار عبوة ناسفة نتج عنها مقتل ثلاثة جنود.

وفي الأسبوع الماضي قُتِلَ مقاول أميركي يعمل لصالح الوكالة الاميركية للتنمية الدولية وحسبما يعتقد فإن مقاتلين من الشيعة قاموا بربط قنبلة في سيارته اثناء مروره بالقرب من جامعة بغداد. وفي يوم الاحد قتل جنديان اميركيان بعد قذف رمانة يدوية خارقة للدروع تحت المركبة التي كانا يستقلناها.

وتقول الصحيفة انه وبالرغم من ان الجيش الاميركي لم ينشر تفصيلات عن هجوم يوم الاربعاء الذي تسبب بمقتل ثلاثة جنود الا ان مسؤولين مطلعين على الحادث قالوا ان الصاروخ كان من القوة بحيث انه تسبب بجرح عشرة جنود والعديد منهم اصابته حرجة.

ولم تعلن اية جهة مسؤوليتها الفورية عن الهجوم الاخير، لكن كتائب حزب الله وهي واحدة من الميليشيات الثلاث التي ذكرها بيو كانان قالت في وقت سابق من الشهر الماضي انها المسؤولة عن مقتل الجنود.

وتنقل الصحيفة عن بيو كانان قوله" بلا شك فان كتائب حزب الله تنفذ اوامر فيلق القدس التابع للحرس الثوري الايراني" وهو الوحدة المتخصصة تماما بالعمليات خارج ايران " ويضيف اللواء بيو كانان " ان قيادة حزب الله تعيش داخل ايران وان الكتائب يتم تدريبها وتجهيزها بشكل مباشر من قبل قوة القدس".

وتضيف الصحيفة في تقريرها ما قاله وزير الدفاع المغادر روبرت غيتس في مقابلته مع نشرية بلو مبيرغ الاخبارية في حديثه عن ارتباطات الميليشيات الشيعية بايران" ان ايران تقدم الاسلحة كما انها تقوم بالتدريب وهي تقدم التقنيات الجديدة. وايران تطور (التقنيات) وهذا ما يثير القلق".

وفي نهاية التقرير تنقل الصحيفة عن اللواء جيفري بيو كانان قوله ان الجهود لحماية القوات الاميركية تزداد تعقيدا بسبب التنافس بين الميليشيات الشيعية التي تريد كل منها ان تظهر بمظهر المجموعة الشيعية المتمردة المهيمنة في العراق.

وكالات
http://aawsat.com/details.asp?sectio...29208&feature=
http://www.al-ansaar.net/main/pages/news.php?nid=7806
http://www.arabstoday.net/index.php?...326&Itemid=111

**Gladiators** · 21-07-2011, 05:45 PM

تقرير آخر للواشنطن بوست في 6/7/2011 من اعداد إد أوكيفي وجوبي ووريك.
Weapons prove Iranian role in Iraq, U.S. says

By Ed O’Keefe and Joby Warrick

BAGHDAD — Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are using more sophisticated weapons than in the past to target U.S. troops and military installations in Iraq, according to senior U.S. officials.
James F. Jeffrey, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said Tuesday that fresh forensic testing on weapons used in the latest deadly attacks in the country bolsters assertions by U.S. officials that Iran is supporting Iraqi insurgents with new weapons and training.
“We’re not talking about a smoking pistol. There is no doubt this is Iranian,” Jeffrey said in an interview.
“We’re seeing more lethal weapons, more accurate weapons, more longer-range weapons,” Jeffrey added. “And we’re seeing more sophisticated mobile and other deployment options, and we’re seeing better-trained people.”
In some cases, insurgents made no effort to remove from the weapons identification numbers suggesting that they came from Iran, “which in itself is troubling,” Jeffrey said.
In recent weeks, Jeffrey and U.S. military officials have blamed three Shiite militia groups — the Promised Day Brigade, Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah — for a wave of violence that resulted in the bloodiest month for U.S. forces here in two years. The groups have been trained and supplied by Iranian Revolutionary Guard special forces, and Iranian special agents have crossed into Iraq to provide some of the training and materials, officials said.
Jeffrey provided details of the forensic testing after Gen. Lloyd Austin, commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq, declined to do so earlier in the day.
In a brief exchange, Austin said only that the weapons “are coming in from Iran, we’re certain of that.”
Jeffrey and Austin traveled Tuesday to the southern port city of Basra for the opening of a new U.S. consulate intended to serve Iraq’s nine southern provinces. The consulate, housed in dozens of trailers behind thick blast walls, is scheduled to relocate to a more permanent structure in September, officials said.
U.S. officials have previously accused Iran of supplying weapons and training to Iraqi insurgents, although details have been scant. In a 2009 report on global terrorism, the State Department accused Iran of providing Iraqi militant groups with “advanced rockets, sniper rifles, automatic weapons and mortars” for use against coalition forces. The report also accused Iran of increasingly the lethality of the roadside bombs, or IEDs, that militants were using to blow up U.S. military vehicles.
Iranian groups “provided training both inside and outside of Iran for Iraqi militants in the construction and use of IED technology and other advance weaponry,” the document said. Separately, the Justice Department in 2008 indicted a group of Iranian businessmen in the purchase of sophisticated electric circuits and other hardware that were later used to make roadside bombs in Iraq.
Perhaps the most specific evidence until now of direct Iranian support for attacks on U.S. troops came in May 2009 after the discovery of a cache of weapons in a riverbank in Iraq’s eastern Maysan province, a majority-Shiite enclave that borders Iran. The cache included 150 copper plates that had been professionally milled for use in a particularly deadly type of device known as “explosively formed projectile” bombs. The cache also included sophisticated launching rails for rockets that are designed to increase range and accuracy. It was later linked to an Iraqi militia that U.S. officials say is trained and equipped by Iran.
Michael Eisenstadt, the director of military studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iran has little reason to hide its support for groups attacking Americans in Iraq.
“They’re feeling a lot more confident now, as the supreme leader is not worried about an American attack” on Iran, Eisenstadt said. If anything, he added, Iran is happy to claim sponsorship of anti-U.S. proxy groups that will vie for power in Iraq after U.S. forces leave the country. “As we draw down, they will ramp up to give the impression that they pushed us out,” he said.
Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 35 people were killed and at least 28 injured Tuesday when a booby-trapped car and explosive charge detonated simultaneously near the city council building in Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, officials said. No group immediately asserted responsibility, but Iraqi political officials said the attacks were part of a feud between Sunnis and Shiites in the Sunni-dominated area.
On Monday night, attackers launched rockets at a hotel in Baghdad’s Green Zone, killing at least five people, including two women and three children, police officials said. The attack came as Americans were wrapping up Fourth of July celebrations in U.S. buildings nearby.
Under an agreement brokered during the George W. Bush administration, all U.S. forces are scheduled to leave Iraq at the end of the year unless the Iraqi government requests that some remain to bolster security and help train the Iraqi army.
Administration officials have said the military would be willing to leave some U.S. troops if the Iraqi leadership asks, which it has yet to do, given the political outcry that would probably ensue. Fewer than 50,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Iraq.
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said Tuesday that the withdrawal remains on schedule for Dec. 31 and that “right now there are no plans to keep troops in Iraq beyond that point.” He said any Iraqi request to do so “would be given serious consideration by this administration.”

Warrick reported from Washington. Staff writer Scott Wilson in Washington and special correspondents Aziz Alwan and Asaad Majeed in Baghdad contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...mzH_story.html
http://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.ph...iraq&Itemid=29
ترجمة التقرير من موقع كتائب حزب الله ،صحيفة الرأي وموقع الانصار الالكتروني

http://kataibhizbollah.org/ar/pages/news.php?nid=176
http://alrayy.com/26312.htm
http://www.al-ansaar.net/main/pages/news.php?nid=7899

تقرير الوول ستريت جورنال لجاي سولومون شارك في اعداده جوليان بارنس.

Iran Funnels New Weapons to Iraq and Afghanistan

By JAY SOLOMON

TEHRAN—Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has transferred lethal new munitions to its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, according to senior U.S. officials, in a bid to accelerate the U.S. withdrawals from these countries.

The Revolutionary Guard has smuggled rocket-assisted exploding projectiles to its militia allies in Iraq, weapons that have already resulted in the deaths of American troops, defense officials said. They said Iranians have also given long-range rockets to the Taliban in Afghanistan, increasing the insurgents' ability to hit U.S. and other coalition positions from a safer distance.

Such arms shipments would escalate the shadow competition for influence playing out between Tehran and Washington across the Middle East and North Africa, fueled by U.S. preparations to draw down forces from two wars and the political rebellions that are sweeping the region.

The U.S. is wrestling with the aftermath of uprisings against longtime Arab allies from Tunisia to Bahrain, and trying to leave behind stable, friendly governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran appears to be trying to gain political ground amid the turmoil and to make the U.S. withdrawals as quick and painful as possible.

"I think we are likely to see these Iranian-backed groups continue to maintain high attack levels" as the exit date nears, Maj. Gen. James Buchanan, the U.S. military's top spokesman in Iraq, said in an interview. "But they are not going to deter us from doing everything we can to help the Iraqi security forces."

In June, 15 U.S. servicemen died in Iraq, the highest monthly casualty figure there in more than two years. The U.S. has attributed all the attacks to Shiite militias it says are are trained by the Revolutionary Guards, rather than al Qaeda or other Sunni groups that were the most lethal forces inside Iraq a few years ago.

In Afghanistan, the Pentagon has in recent months traced to Iran the Taliban's acquisition of rockets that give its fighters roughly double the range to attack North Atlantic Treaty Organization and U.S. targets. U.S. officials said the rockets' markings, and the ************************ of their discovery, give them a "high degree" of confidence that they came from the Revolutionary Guard's overseas unit, the Qods Force.

U.S. defense officials are also increasingly concerned that Iran's stepped-up military activities in the Persian Gulf could inadvertently trigger a clash. A number of near misses involving Iranian and allied ships and planes in those waters in recent months have caused Navy officials to call for improved communication in the Gulf.

Iran's assertive foreign policy comes amid a growing power struggle between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Many of the president's closest aides have been detained on alleged corruption charges in recent weeks, raising questions as to whether Mr. Ahmadinejad will serve out his term.U.S. and European officials also say Iran has grown increasingly aggressive in trying to influence the political rebellions across the Middle East and North Africa. Tehran is alleged to have dispatched military advisers to Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad put down a popular uprising.

In recent months, according to U.S. officials, Iran has also increased its intelligence and propaganda activities in Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen, countries where pro-U.S. leaders have either fallen or come under intense pressure.

Iranian officials denied in interviews and briefings this week that the Revolutionary Guard played any role in arming militants in Iraq and Afghanistan. They charged the U.S. with concocting these stories to justify maintaining an American military presence in the region.

"This is the propaganda of the Americans. They are worried because they have to leave Iraq very soon, according to the plan," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast. "They are better off going home and sorting out their own domestic problems."

Iranians officials have also accused the U.S. and Israel of interfering in Iranian affairs, including assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists and supporting opposition groups. The U.S. and Israel have denied this.

In recent weeks, Iran's leadership invited the presidents of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to Tehran to discuss regional affairs. Senior Iranian officials made it clear during those meetings that they wanted an accelerated exit of American forces from the region.

"Americans want to have permanent bases in Afghanistan, and this is dangerous because the real security will not be established as long as the American military forces are present," Ayatollah Khamenei told Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week, according to Iranian state media.

Iraq has in recent years been a proxy battlefield for the U.S. and Iran. U.S. officials in Iraq said the Qods Force is training and arming three primary militias that have in recent months attacked U.S. and Iraqi forces. Kata'ib Hezbollah, or Brigades of the Party of God, is viewed as the one most directly taking orders from Revolutionary Guard commanders in Iran. Two others, the Promise Day Brigade and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, are offshoots of the Mahdi Army headed by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who currently lives in Iran.

Over the past six months, Kata'ib Hezbollah has escalated attacks on U.S. forces employing weapons called IRAMs, or improvised rocket-assisted munitions. The weapons are often propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by rockets. Militiamen launch the weapons from the backs of flatbed trucks.

Kata'ib Hezbollah claimed credit for a June 6 IRAM attack that killed six American troops at Camp Victory, near Baghdad International Airport. This week, three more Americans were killed when an IRAM struck a desert base just a few miles from the Iranian border in Iraq's Wasit Province, according to U.S. officials.

"We believe the militias see themselves as in competition with each other," said Gen. Buchanan. "They want to claim credit for making us leave Iraq."

The U.S. believes Iranian involvement in Afghanistan is significantly lower than in Iraq. But U.S. officials said they have seen clear evidence that the Revolutionary Guard has transferred longer-range rockets to elements of the Taliban that significantly enhance their ability to target U.S. and other NATO forces.

In February, British forces intercepted a shipment of four dozen 122-millimeter rockets moving through Afghanistan's desolate Nimruz Province near the Iranian and Pakistan borders. The rockets have an estimated range of about 13 miles, more than double the distance of the majority of the Taliban's other rockets.

"It was the first time we've seen that weapon," said a senior U.S. defense official in Afghanistan. "We saw that as upping the ante a bit from the kind of support we've seen in the past."

U.S. officials stressed that most of Iran's influence in Afghanistan is channeled through "soft power"—business, aid and diplomacy. But these officials said the deployment of more U.S. and NATO forces along the Afghan-Iranian border as part of the Obama administration's Afghanistan "surge" appears to have raised Iran's sense of insecurity.

These officials said Iran's support for the Taliban appears to wax and wane in relation to how successful Washington and NATO appear to be in stabilizing Afghanistan. Shiite-majority Iran has traditionally viewed the Taliban, a Sunni group, with trepidation. The two sides nearly fought a war in 1998 after the Taliban executed Iranian diplomats based in the central Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

"They're supporting the Taliban because they want us out of here," said the U.S. official in Afghanistan. "If we're making gains, I can see them upping their support. If they're making gains, they'll probably stay quiet."

In large part because of the growing wariness over Iran's backing of Shiite militias in Iraq, the U.S. is considering altering its withdrawal plans from the country, say administration and defense officials.

All U.S. forces are due to depart at the end of the year, but senior American officials have hinted loudly that they would like Baghdad to ask the U.S. to keep a viable force in the country beyond that date. Some administration and military officials have talked about retaining 10,000 troops in Iraq.

Military officials and defense analysts cite Iran as a prime justification for extending the U.S. presence. They say Iran is trying to use its military, which is much more powerful than Iraq's, and Shiite proxy militias inside Iraq to pressure Baghdad to maintain close ties with Tehran.

Adm. William McRaven, the administration's nominee to lead Special Operations Command, told a Senate panel this week that he favors keeping a commando force in Iraq that would be available to counter threats.

—Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...640167182.html
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07...d-afghanistan/
http://www.jacksnewswatch.com/2011/0...d-afghanistan/

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http://www.kataibhizbollah.org/ar/pa...ws.php?nid=174

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http://slumz.boxden.com/f5/jul-3-ira...egion-1572299/
http://www.rapturewatch.net/apps/for...ize-the-region

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http://www.jpost.com/Features/FrontL...aspx?id=228402
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http://alwatan.kuwait.tt/ArticleDeta...rQuarter=20113

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http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...lling-6-g-i-s/

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http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtri...0828_07_06.asp

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