)
The US military on Wednesday reiterated charges that Iran is supplying weaponry and training to the insurgency in Iraq.
“We know that (EFPs) are being in fact manufactured and smuggled into this country, and we know that training does go on in Iran for people to learn how to assemble them and how to employ them. We know that training has gone on as recently as this past month from detainees debriefs,” U.S. military spokesman Major-General William Caldwell said at a weekly briefing.
)
Caldwell showed the Baghdad press corps EFPs he said were manufactured in Iran, as well as mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades, which he said were found at a house and in a car in Baghdad this week.
“We also know that training still is being conducted in Iran for insurgent elements from Iraq. We know that as recent as last week from debriefing personnel,” he said.
The general would not specify which arm of the Iranian government was doing the training, but referred to the trainers “surrogates” of Iran's intelligence agency. Caldwell also said that two recently arrested insurgents reported having received training in Syria.
The AP writes that sources inside a splinter group of the Madi Army reported that "there are as many as 4,000 members of their organization that were trained in Iran and that they have stockpiles of EFPs."
