Iraq caught in U.S.-Iranian row

BAGHDAD, May 5 (UPI) -- High-ranking Iraqi officials returned from Iran with "positive" declarations of support while U.S. officials maintain Tehran is stoking the violence.

"The delegation saw a positive stance from the brothers in Iran to support the government's efforts in extending the sovereignty of the state and to fight outlaws," said Iraqi Parliament deputy speaker Khalid al-Attiya.

Iranian officials deny allegations they back Shiite militias and the so-called special groups that U.S. officials charge with provoking coalition forces in Basra and Baghdad, The Christian Science Monitor said Monday.

"Today the Iranians and Iraqis want one thing: to end the (U.S.) occupation and to see a stable and secure Iraq," said Hussein Shariatmadari, a close adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the editor of the influential Iranian newspaper Kayhan.

Salah al-Obeidi, the official spokesman for Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, said the alleged discovery of Iranian-made weapons in Basra was nothing out of the ordinary, telling the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper blaming Iran was the Iraqi security forces' way of "trying to find excuses" for its poor performance in Basra.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, charge the elite Iranian Quds Force with supplying advanced weapons to Shiite militias who "have killed thousands of coalition and Iraqi forces."

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, however, maintained Baghdad's independence in the matter.

"We need our own government documentation of this interference, not from the Americans, not from the media," he said.