WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- U.S. forces in Iraq detained five Iranians in two separate raids, a top U.S. military official confirmed Wednesday.
On Dec. 21, U.S. forces conducted a raid on a site in Baghdad and detained 10 adult males. Based on intelligence seized in those raids, it was determined two of the 10 were Iranian. All of them remain in the custody of U.S. forces, said Brig. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq.
"Debriefings of these detainees and investigation of the seized materials have yielded intelligence that link perhaps some of them to some illegal activities that have occurred," Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad.
On Dec. 20, U.S. forces stopped a vehicle with four men in it, three of them Iranian. All four were handed over to the Iraqi government, Caldwell said.
The presence of Iranians in Iraq is not unusual -- the country is the birthplace of the Shiite sect of Islam and hosts holy sites which are popular for Iranian religious pilgrims to visit. The grand ayatollah in Najaf, Ali Al-Sistani, is Iranian.
However, Pentagon officials have accused Iranian of putting Quds, or Revolutionary Guard-type forces into Iraq.
In March, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said of Iran: "They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq, and we know it, and it is something that they will look back on as having been an error in judgment."
Top Iraqi officials, including those associated with clerics Muqtada al Sadr and Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, have long-standing ties to Iranian political and religious powers. According to the International Herald Tribune, the Dec. 21 raid occurred at Hakim's Baghdad compound.
Iranians have long aided Shiite Iraqis who were fighting Saddam Hussein's regime, particularly in Maysan province. Iranian agents are also beleived to be the source of the sophisticated and deadly roadside bombs that began showing up in Iraq in 2005.
