The Mujahideen-e-Khalq

Here comes the section of the US News piece that its opponents have waited most eagerly for - a chance to discount all of the information presented by claiming that it was all provided by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a Marxist cult terrorist organization opposed to the current regime in Tehran that shilled for Saddam Hussein and fought against US forces during OIF. After all, the detractors claim, wasn't the much-maligned INC also just as eager to lie when it suited their purpose of convincing the US to invade Iraq?

Maybe.

Some of the most important information on Iran has been provided by an Iranian exile group, the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq. The MEK fled Iran after the 1979 revolution and later relocated with Saddam's support to Iraq, where it continued to advocate the overthrow of the Iranian clerical regime. U.S. forces now are guarding its 3,800 members at Camp Ashraf, the MEK's sprawling compound northeast of Baghdad. Designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, the MEK nevertheless has provided American officials with significant intelligence on Iran's nuclear weapons programs. The MEK, wrote one Army analyst, is "quite proficient at intelligence collection." Other analysts said that the MEK also had provided valuable on-the-ground intelligence to Army Special Forces after the invasion of Iraq. "The SF guys claim the [MEK] are a valuable intel asset," wrote an Army sergeant who had met frequently with the MEK, "and are generally reliable." At the same time, an Army team wrote that it was important to be mindful that, given that its stated goal is to topple the government in Tehran, the MEK's reports "were designed to inform as well as influence American policy toward . . . the Iranian regime."

Emphasis mine.

I should also point out before I go any further on the INC that most of the charges that have been hurled against the organization and its counterparts are more or less refuted in the SSIC and Butler reports on US and UK pre-war intelligence with respect to Iraqi WMDs. To put it as bluntly as possible, we didn't believe that there were WMDs in Iraq solely on the basis of the good word of Ahmed Chalabi and his associates. Moreover, a key difference between the "MEK = Iranian INC" comparison is that, according to the INC's critics, none of the intelligence provided was worth the price of the paper that it was printed on. The MEK info, by contrast, appears to have more or less panned out with respect to those things they told us that specifically relate to Iraq.

Please understand, it is not my intention to legitimize the MEK or hold it up as a bastion of people who want nothing more than freedom and democracy for the Iranian people. However, they do appear to have had some information that has been valuable to the US that they were more than happy to provide, in large part because they are now defanged and attempting to claw their way out the hole their leadership has created for them because of their decision to shill for Saddam Hussein. I should mention, incidentally, that the MEK is now claiming to possess secret evidence to be released today with respect to the Iranian nuclear program. Maybe it's true, maybe it ain't, but we should know one way or another soon enough.

That caveat with respect to the MEK info, incidentally, was also on every US and British intelligence report that discussed groups like the INC.

Relying on its own agents inside Iran and other sources, the MEK has given Army personnel detailed reports on what it says have been Iran's efforts to destabilize Iraq. In its reports, some of which were reviewed by U.S. News, the MEK reported on the intelligence-collection methods of Iran's MOIS, arms shipments from Iran to Iraq, and the involvement in these operations of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's so-called Qods Force, or "Jerusalem Force."

A little bit of background is probably helpful here. MEK was used heavily by the Mukhabarat to supplement its own HUMINT issues with respect to Iran. Since most MEK members are themselves Iranian and maintain their own intelligence presence inside the country separate from that of the Mukhabarat. Qods Force, it should be noted, is made up of the elite of the IRGC and when hosting senior al-Qaeda leaders appears to pass its time by killing suspected MEK members. The Iranian regime regularly arrests people on charges of assisting the MEK, and even if half of those are trumped up it would seem to figure that the group is quite active inside Iran.

In December last year, MEK intelligence officers provided the Army with a detailed report and maps on what it called "a widespread network for transferring and distributing arms from Iran to Iraq" through the Ilam region in western Iran. The MEK said its sworn enemy, the Badr Organization, was involved in the network. According to the MEK's operatives, both Badr and the Iranian command staff were based in Iran at the border town of Mehran. "In order to control and manage the intelligence and terrorist activities in Iraq," a MEK intelligence officer wrote, "the Qods Force has recently moved part of its command staff from Tehran to the border city of Mehran." His report also identifed the areas in western, northwestern, and southern Iran where Qods Force commanders operated, along with the identities of more than a dozen commanders.

The MEK's reports contain detailed information on arms shipments. On Dec. 4, 2003, the MEK reported, Iranian agents moved 1,000 rocket-propelled grenades and seven boxes of TNT from western Iran to Iraqi resistance groups. A week later, Iran's Qods Force moved "a number of Mirage submachine guns" into Iraq in a "truck loaded with cement bags under which the arms were hidden," according to another report. Later that month, the MEK said, an Iraqi working for Iran drove a red fruit truck--a "cover for a consignment of arms," including RPG s, mortars, and Kalashnikov rifles--across the border into Iraq.

The Badr Brigade was pretty much the Iranian analogue to the MEK and the two engaged in violent clashes during the course of OIF as Iran attempted to use SCIRI to eliminate the terrorist organization amidst the chaos of the Iraq war. All of this information is quite impressive and suggests that all of the money that Saddam Hussein blew financing the MEK was well worth it as an intelligent capacity if not as a proxy force - provided its true, that is. Unfortunately, the US News article doesn't say one way or another, and I presume that the US has at least some way of verifying the information. Certainly enough Iranians were captured fighting with the Mahdi Army for verification purposes of at least some of this stuff ...

The dissident Iranian group also provided American intelligence officers with information on how Hezbollah was aiding Iran in gathering intelligence in Iraq. Hezbollah, a bitter enemy of Israel with close ties to Iran and Syria, collected information on American and British troops, photographed them, then sent the information to Qods Force commanders in Iran, according to MEK intelligence reports.

This'd be the Lebanese Hezbollah, that "independent resistance group," in case you're curious. And if anybody is still doubting, their presence inside Iraq was confirmed by US intelligence officials in the New York Times who noted that they were there but also that they weren't attacking. Guess now we know why ...

Intelligence officers for the MEK also said they had learned that Hezbollah had some 800 operatives in Iraq as of last January, including assassination teams. "The teams assassinate their opponents," a MEK intelligence officer reported, "and carry out sabotage operations." The MEK claimed that Hezbollah had assassinated an Iraqi man who had provided information to coalition forces.

The highest number of Hezbollah operatives I've seen inside Iraq is between 200-500, Imad Mugniyeh apparently among them. And Hezbollah carrying out assassinations inside Iraq, given what they do in Lebanon, is something I'd quite easily believe.

Other sources provided similar information, including Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. Mossad warned U.S. intelligence officials in October 2003 that Hezbollah planned to set up a resistance movement that would cause mass casualties, according to a report prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Joint Intelligence Task Force--Combating Terrorism. Iran, the report said, was calling the shots. "Should such mass casualty attacks be considered," the task force wrote, "they [Hezbollah] must first receive approval from Iran." The Iranians "do not want the U.S. and the coalition to focus attention on Iranian support for terrorist networks or other anti-coalition activities they're involved with," said a report by an analyst for a U.S. Central Command support team in Iraq. "Iran is also trying to ensure it has a great deal of influence in Iraq, and one way of doing that is to supply weapons to anti-coalition groups."

There are a great many unsung casualties of the war in Iraq. One of them, unfortunately, is that intelligence information from a loyal ally like Israel on countries that it must keep a very close watch on for reasons of its own national security are no longer considered reliable in some circles. Putting such people aside for a moment, this seems to track with the general pattern one can see emerging here: Iran wants to stir up trouble inside Iraq, but nothing so great as to draw the full force of US retaliation (at least until they go nuclear, at which point all bets are off), and nothing that can be too directly tied back to them. Hezbollah is one such example, so their more militant members (Mugniyeh) have been reined in by the Iranian leadership - at least for the time being.

Iranian agencies put the intelligence they gathered to practical use, planning, funding, and training attackers, according to many of the intelligence reports reviewed by U.S. News. In November of last year, the Iraq Survey Group received information that Iran had formed small groups of fighters to conduct attacks in cities across Iraq. "Iran had reportedly placed a bounty on U.S. forces of U.S. $2,000 for each helicopter shot down, $1,000 for each tank destroyed, and $500 for each U.S. military personnel killed," the Iraq Survey Group reported. Iranian agents were also suspected in the assassination of at least two prominent Iraqis. In the fall of 2003, there were two reported plots against Bremer, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator. The Iraq Survey Group, citing a source who "has provided reliable information in the past," said a senior Iranian cleric in Tehran set up a special 100-member army, known as al Saqar, which means eagle in Arabic, to assassinate Bremer and carry out other terrorist attacks. The Eagle Army, the Iraqi Survey Group was told, had trained for 30 days at an Iranian terrorist camp. This alleged plot and others reportedly planned against Bremer came to nothing. There were many reported plots against Bremer during his one-year tenure in Baghdad, and throughout his time there he was provided with blanket security. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

This is from the Iraq Survey Group, mind you, not the MEK. And if you want to consider the ISG as being the final word on the issue of WMDs (as I do), it makes more than enough sense to trust them on issues such as this, which in of itself should help to illustrate the nature of the Iranian threat with respect to Iraq. Placing bounties on US soldiers and vehicles, plotting to assassinate US officials, at what point does the status quo become intolerable? And if it does, what then? These are the questions that, unfortunately, aren't being asked as we get into the issue of how best to handle Iran, with some people even going so far as to argue that it doesn't really matter if Iran goes nuclear. If they're placing bounties on the heads of US soldiers, I (along with most sensible people) would say that it makes a great difference indeed.

Ansar al-Islam

Jihadists saw Iraq as an opportunity. In a report quoting a source who was not otherwise characterized, a U.S. Special Operations task force wrote that "the Lebanese Hizballah leadership believes that the struggle in Iraq is the new battleground in the fight against the U.S." In fact, other analysts wrote, Hezbollah and Ansar al-Islam were among the most active groups in Iraq, although al Qaeda operatives also were believed to be operating there soon after the invasion.

They're distinguishing between Ansar al-Islam and al-Qaeda here, though I myself don't. Most of the al-Qaeda inside Iraq prior to the war were al-Tawhid/Bayyat al-Imam, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Lashkar-e-Taiba (the latter two arriving in February 2003), etc - though even the SSIC report said that several hundred al-Qaeda fighters showed up to reinforce Ansar al-Islam prior to the war. In any case, regardless of how one regards al-Qaeda activity inside Iraq prior to the war, nobody is really going to debate that they're there now.

Ansar al-Islam is a small group of Arabs and Iraqi Kurds that is believed to have figured in some of the most violent attacks in Iraq. American and British intelligence, the reports show, concluded that Ansar al-Islam was working closely with Iran, and also al Qaeda, in its terrorist attacks against coalition forces. Military intelligence reports suggested that the group was believed to be linked to two horrific bombings in Baghdad last year--the attack on the Jordanian Embassy on August 7, in which 17 people were killed, and the August 19 bombing that devastated the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. That attack killed 22 people, including U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. Intelligence reporting indicated that the mastermind of the U.N. attack was Zarqawi, the terrorist who has continued to bedevil coalition forces, and that al Qaeda operatives also played a role. A "reliable source with good access" said that Zarqawi had coordinated his plans for attacks in Iraq with Ansar al-Islam's top leader, Abu Abdullah al-Shafii. The reports did not link Iran directly to either the U.N. attack or the Jordanian bombing. But one British defense report noted pointedly: "Some elements [of Ansar al-Islam] remain in Iran. Intelligence indicates that elements" of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "are providing safe haven and basic training to Iran-based AI [Ansar al-Islam] cadres."

Ansar al-Islam, as I and others have noted before, had ties to both Iraq and Iran prior to the beginning of OIF - remember what I said earlier about how odd some of these alliances can get and neither patron was likely aware of the other's existence. Abu Abdullah al-Shafei [Shafii] is an Iraqi Kurd from Gwer who is the new Ansar al-Islam supremo with Mullah Krekar still up in Norway. He was originally the leader of Jund al-Islam (the proto-Ansar formed in September 2001 at bin Laden's behest) and served as Ansar al-Islam's top military commander even after Krekar joined the group and became its spiritual leader. Al-Shafei is also a former Iraqi soldier who traveled to Afghanistan after the Iraq-Iran War and also fought in Chechnya under Khattab before returning to northern Iraq.

As far as Iranian patronage of Ansar al-Islam, here's some further information a little bird provided me from what I consider a highly reliable source:

Following OIF, most of the Ansar’s leadership appears to have relocated to the Iranian province of Kordestan. More specifically, Ansar leaders Abdullah al-Shafei, Ayoub Afghani, and Abu Wael reconstituted their organization in the Iranian border town of Sanandaj and are believed to be under the protection of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.39, 40 Ravansar, Meriwan, Sina, and Marakhel are other Iranian border towns where Ansar is believed to have a presence.41 While the level of official support within the Iranian hierarchy for Ansar is limited, Kurdish intelligence suggested in June 2003 that between 20 and 30 members of the group were taken to Tehran for special training.42 In addition, representatives of Ansar are believed to have been invited to attend the "Ten Days of Dawn" terrorist summit in Tehran in February 2004.43

And:

Iran appears to have regarded Ansar as the proxy force of choice to use against the secular PUK. It is therefore likely that in its fight against the PUK, Ansar had the tacit approval of Iranian authorities to resupply its forces from Iran.83 This support continued post-OIF, when hardline elements within Iran are believed to have sheltered Ansar. Additionally, Ansar reportedly maintained offices in Tehran in August 2002, and most intelligence analysts believe it to be highly improbable that the al Qaeda contingent active within Ansar would have been able to move from Afghanistan into Iran without the knowledge of the Iranian security forces.84

To conclude:

As noted, since OIF, senior leaders of Ansar have been regrouping in Iranian Kordestan under the protection of hardline elements within the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Since August 2003, suspected Ansar members have been streaming back across the Iranian border into Iraq.85 According to captured members of Ansar, the Iranian military provided them with weapons, medical treatment, provisions, and sanctuary before they went into Iraq to carry out terrorist operations.86 Also, over a dozen Ansar members were taken to Tehran for training, and the organization was invited to participate in a terrorist summit in Tehran in February 2004.87

The British information appears to back these conclusions up and add further details:

A separate report from the British Secret Intelligence Service, quoting a source who "has proved fairly reliable," said that Iranian government agencies were also secretly helping Ansar al-Islam members cross into Iraq from Iran, as part of a plan to mount sniper attacks against coalition forces. There were also multiple American intelligence reports identifying Iran as a chief supporter of Ansar al-Islam. U.S. intelligence received information that an Iranian was aiding Ansar al-Islam "on how to build and set up" improvised explosive devices, known as IED s. An analyst for the U.S. Central Command offered this assessment: "AI [Ansar al-Islam] is actively attempting to improve IED effectiveness and sophistication."

But of course, everyone knows that a Shi'ite theocracy would never aid Sunni fanatics. And thus does the Iranian strategy of support for the insurgency and plausible deniability truck on, leading to the question of at what point do these kinds of ideological blinders stop being a pleasant exercise in alternative history and start becoming a serious liability? As long as people, many of them entirely intelligent people, make the argument that we need not fear the possibility that a nuclear Iran might turn into a new central command for al-Qaeda (though I tend to doubt that's possible anymore than it already is) because Shi'ites hate Sunnis and vice versa, we're essentially still running blind with respect to the nature of the threat. How can we hope to defeat an enemy we still don't understand?

Enough already.