Those detained and released by this new joint force report that they experienced harsh interrogation techniques.
Reports of a US on-the-ground preoccupation with Austrian rifles in Baghdad follow last week’s claim, carried in the UK Telegraph, that the US had confiscated a number of Steyr-Mannlicher HS50 from Shi'a militias in Iraq. Without providing proof, the US military alleged that these rifles were used to attack US soldiers in Iraq, and claimed that the rifles proved that Iran had armed Shi'a militias.
The original allegations of Iran’s arming Iraqi militias with the Austrian sniper rifles did not receive much attention in the press, in part because they did not contain enough evidence to make the story in the Telegraph credible. The US to date has not even provided serial numbers that could prove that the Steyr rifles it found earlier had traveled from Austria to Iraq via Iran.
IraqSlogger noted the allegations when the originally appeared in the Iraqi press, and also noted an unconvincing Wall Street Journal op-ed that capitalized on the charges.
So the question is, is there evidence to justify this "harsh" attention to the Steyr rifles, or is the US seeking to create evidence that it can later use against Iran for other purposes?
