{"id":1833,"date":"2008-06-08T08:04:07","date_gmt":"2008-06-08T12:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=1833"},"modified":"2008-06-08T08:05:18","modified_gmt":"2008-06-08T12:05:18","slug":"saturday-arrests-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=1833","title":{"rendered":"Saturday arrests in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, two Shi’ite extremists surrendered to American troops, one of whom turned out to be a Hezbollah operative working for Iran to train the anti-government Mahdi Army according to the Associated Press<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Two Shiite militia leaders surrendered to American soldiers Friday, while tens of thousands of supporters of hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr streamed out of mosques to protest against an agreement which could keep U.S. troops here for years.<\/p>\n

The arrests and demonstrations occurred on the eve of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s trip to Shiite-dominated Iran, his second visit there in a year.<\/p>\n

U.S. officials allege that Iran is arming and training Shiite militiamen and encouraging a public campaign in Iraq against the proposed U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which the Iranians oppose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today, according to another Associated Press article in the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, US troops arrested yet another pair of Iran-linked terrorists yesterday;<\/p>\n

U.S. soldiers in Baghdad captured an Iraqi arms dealer and “assassination squad” leader responsible for trafficking Shiite extremists in and out of neighboring Iran for training, the military said Sunday.<\/p>\n

The arrest reinforced long-standing U.S. allegations that Iran arms, trains and funds Shiite Muslim militiamen inside Iraq — charges that Tehran denies. It also coincided with a two-day visit to Iran by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his second such trip in a year.<\/p>\n

The Iraqi prime minister, himself a Shiite, is struggling to keep Washington happy while reassuring Iran, the largest Shiite nation, that a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security agreement would not make his country an American launching pad for attacks on Iran.<\/p>\n

The U.S. arrest campaign against Shiite militiamen with alleged ties to Iran was likely to be on the agenda for Mr. Maliki’s talks with Iranian officials.<\/p>\n

U.S. soldiers, acting on intelligence from other Shiite militiamen already in custody, captured the Basra-based “special groups” leader late Saturday at a hideout in eastern Baghdad, according to a military statement. “The wanted man is alleged to be a commander of an assassination squad in Basra, an arms dealer with connections to Iran and a document counterfeiter,” the statement said. He also arranges transportation of criminals into Iran for training, and then back into Iraq, it said. One of the leader’s aides was also arrested without incident.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More of these connections to Iran will be found as long as the US and Shi’te Iraqi President Maliki remain reticent about confronting the Islamic Republic over these incursions into the sovereign state of Iraq.<\/p>\n

The AP also reported that six al Qaeda folks were rounded up yesterday;<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the military said in another statement that it captured six more suspected Sunni extremists Sunday in the northern city of Mosul, including an alleged al Qaeda in Iraq leader and another man who is a wiring expert in charge of a bombing cell there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s clear that Iraq will not be a safe democracy as long as Iran is allowed to operate with impunity. With elections in the US this year, we can expect these Iranian incursions to result in a big drive to influence the results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, two Shi’ite extremists surrendered to American troops, one of whom turned out to be a … Saturday arrests in Iraq<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-policy","category-politics","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}