Hezbollah
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By early 2005, the presence of Hezbollah operatives in Iraq would become an open secret when Iraqi interior minister Falah al-Naquib announced the arrest of eighteen Lebanese Hezbollah members on terrorism charges.84 That summer, US military officials noted that Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, the former Badr Corps commander, headed a network of Iraqi Shi’a insurgents created by the IRGC’s Qods Force. Based out of Iran, Sheibani’s express goal was targeting US and coalition forces in Iraq, often employing a new, more lethal type of EFP based on a Hezbollah design. A Sheibani network device reportedly killed three British soldiers in Iraq in July 2005 and was responsible for at least thirty-seven bombing attacks in the first half of 2005 alone. According to US officials, Sheibani’s network of some 280 operatives was believed to train in Lebanon, in Baghdad’s Sadr City, and, in an apparently veiled reference to Iran, “in another country.”85
In London, British prime minister Tony Blair cited evidence linking Iran and Hezbollah to recent bombings in which British soldiers were killed in Iraq by a new type of explosive device. “The particular nature of those devices lead us either to Iranian elements or to Hezbollah, because they are similar to the devices used by Hezbollah, that is funded and supported by Iran,” he noted.86 Suddenly, Iran and Hezbollah’s training and weapons smuggling programs had become a priority issue for coalition forces. Still two more years would pass before coalition forces would learn that sometime in 2005 “senior Lebanese Hezbollah leadership” directed an experienced Hezbollah commander “to go to Iran and work with the Qods Force to train Iraqi extremists.”87 Hezbollah was about to accelerate its Unit 3800 mission in Iraq, with deadly consequences.
Until this point, Hezbollah’s ties were primarily with Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, for which Hezbollah provided expertise and training. But the formation of a new Iraqi government in April 2005 brought Iran’s Shi’a allies, SCIRI and the Dawa Party, into key leadership positions. Already in 2004, splits had begun to develop within the Mahdi Army, providing Iran and Hezbollah with a variety of new splinter groups—at this point more akin to neighborhood gangs than full-fledged militias—with which they could partner. For some of these splinter groups, al-Sadr’s decision to align his movement with SCIRI and the Dawa Party under the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) umbrella for the upcoming General Assembly election in December 2005 was a step too far. Though Sadr’s political bloc gained control of key government ministries and therefore provided new sources of income and patronage, some Mahdi Army fighters fiercely opposed the movement’s turn to politics.88
Meanwhile, Iran saw in the Mahdi Army splinter groups—later known as the Special Groups—an opportunity to reproduce the successful Hezbollah model from Lebanon, but with an eye toward the unique political and social realities in Iraq.89 Beyond wanting to maintain plausible deniability for attacks in Iraq, Iranian leaders viewed Iraqi Shi’a groups as a mechanism through which they could influence Iraqi politics without arousing fears among Iraqi Shi’a and Sunnis alike that Iran, a longtime enemy of Iraq, still held animus and hostile intentions toward the new Iraqi government. Since direct Iranian support for Shi’a militants aroused concerns among Iraqis about Iran’s long-term intentions, Lebanese (Arab) Hezbollah made an attractive proxy for Iranian support to Shi’a Iraqi militants. Some 100 Shi’a militants traveled to Lebanon in December 2005 for military training. “They didn’t teach us anything about suicide bombings, they showed us real tactics and taught our snipers,” one trainee commented.90
In early 2006, reports emerged that Imad Mughniyeh himselfwas seen in Iraq, in the southern city of Basra, organizing Mahdi Army fighters’ travel to Iran for military training. By April, he had reportedly returned to Lebanon, where his skills were needed to plan the July 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldiers that led to Hezbollah’s war with Israel later that month. By some accounts, this visit would not have been Mughniyeh’s first in Iraq. One of the many variations of Mughniyeh’s biography, this one promoted by Iranian military leaders, has him completing three months of basic training in Iran in the early 1980s and then traveling “with other Lebanese young men to the Iranian front and [taking] part in several daring operations behind Iraqi lines.”91
Whether or not Mughniyeh traveled to Iraq in 2006, by then American intelligence sources, as well as information gleaned from interviews with detainees in Iraq, revealed without a doubt that Hezbollah was training members of the Mahdi Army. A small number of Hezbollah trainers visited Iraq, according to a senior American intelligence official, but large-scale training for 1,000 to 2,000 Mahdi Army fighters took place in Lebanon. A midlevel Mahdi Army commander corroborated the US intelligence in summer 2006, when he conceded that some 300 Mahdi Army fighters were sent to Lebanon, apparently to fight alongside Hezbollah during the July 2006 war. “They are the best-trained fighters in the Mahdi Army,” he added.92 Meanwhile, back in Baghdad, hundreds of armed Shi’a militants marched in support of Hezbollah during the war with Israel. Heading into weekly Friday prayers, they chanted, “Here we are, ready for your orders, oh Muqtada and Nasrallah…. Woe to you, Israel! We will strike you!”93
The fact that the Iraqi trainees traveled to Lebanon through Syria, US officials added, suggested that at least some Syrian officials were complicit in the training program. Moreover, Syrian officials reportedly attended meetings together with Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani and Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh to coordinate means of turning up the heat on US forces in Iraq.94 Several months after Mughniyeh’s assassination, a senior Mahdi Army commander in Baghdad—speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of what he was about to reveal—said that Mughniyeh had, in fact, supervised Hezbollah operations in Iraq.95
In Washington, despite a consensus on the destructive role Iran was playing in Iraq in late 2006, debates still raged within the US intelligence community over whether Hezbollah was really on the ground in Iraq and whether the group was training Iraqi militias in Iran or Lebanon or both. Testifying before Congress in November 2006, then–CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden stated, “I’ll admit personally that I have come late to this conclusion, but I have all the zeal of a convert as to the ill effect that the Iranians are having on the situation in Iraq.”96
In early 2007, Iran’s political allies in the Iraqi government actually issued a diplomatic demarche demanding Tehran scale back its support for the Iraqi Shi’a militias, which by then were posing a tremendous security risk in the country. Iraqi officials were being killed in internecine Shi’a violence, possibly the result of Iran’s apparent decision to intensify Shi’a militia activity after Hezbollah’s self-declared victory in its war against Israel. Speaking in January 2007, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah told his group’s satellite television station, al-Manar, that “the American occupation poses a danger to the Iraqi people and to the region.” He was crystal clear on his means of rectifying the situation: “We support the option of a comprehensive Iraqi resistance, with all its aspects, especially the military aspect. We believe that the solution in Iraq begins with adopting the option of armed resistance—jihad against the occupation forces.”97 Some in the Qods Force “sought to replicate [Hezbollah’s self-perceived] victory [against Israel] in Iraq, opening the floodgates” and providing advanced EFPs and other weapons to a range of Shi’a factions.98 By mid-2007, al-Sadr was no longer coy about his organization’s ties to Hezbollah. “We have formal links with Hezbollah, we do exchange ideas and discuss the situation facing Shiites in both countries…. We copy Hezbollah in the way they fight and their tactics, we teach each other and we are getting better through this.”99
In seeking to lead from behind and put an Arab face on its efforts, in 2007 the Islamic Republic sent a master trainer—Ali Moussa Daqduq—to Iran to coordinate the training program and make periodic visits to Iraq. This use of the Hezbollah leader Daqduq would assuage any Iraqi unease about working under seemingly aloof and disdainful Iranian operatives.100 Whereas Daqduq had been informed back in 2005 that he would be traveling to Iran to work
with the Qods Force to train Iraqi extremists, he only went to Tehran in May 2006, accompanied by the Hezbollah official in charge of Unit 3800 activities in Iraq, Yusef Hashim. In Tehran, Daqduq and Hashim met with the commander and deputy commander of Qods Force special external operations, who informed them of plans to monitor and report on progress in Iraq. In the year before British Special Forces captured Daqduq in Basra in late 2007, he made four trips to Iraq. He reported back to the Qods Force on the Special Groups’ use of mortars and rockets, their manufacture and use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and kidnapping operations. His overall instructions were simple: “He was tasked to organize the Special Groups in ways that mirrored how Hezbollah was organized in Lebanon.”101
Hezbollah’s Training Programs for Iraqi Insurgents
So it was that Hezbollah, at Iran’s behest, helped develop a sophisticated training program for Shi’a militants from Iraq. Some training occurred in Iraq, reportedly at the Deir and Kutaiban Camps east of Basra near the Iranian border. According to statements from detained Special Groups members, Hezbollah trainers numbered no more than ten at a time. Trainers, including Daqduq, always kept a low profile and never stayed in Iraq for very long, moving back and forth across the Iranian border.102
In Iran, Hezbollah and Qods Force instructors ran a well-organized training program in which Daqduq was directly involved.103 The outsourcing of training to Hezbollah spoke volumes for Iran’s regard for the group’s professionalism as terrorist trainers. The use of Hezbollah also averted Iraqi militants’ complaints about the religious indoctrination included in the Iranian training programs, which were generally uninspiring and taught by sheikhs who did not speak Arabic well.104
According to documents seized by coalition forces, a formal selection process for prospective trainees considered the needs identified by Special Groups leaders but also set minimal qualifications for admittance. Candidates had to be able to read and write, for example, but Special Groups leaders also sought open-minded, strong, mature, and responsible people who demonstrated acumen for organizational skills and were “not a problem.”105 The Qods Force and its Hezbollah instructors trained some twenty to sixty Iraqis at a time, in sessions generally lasting twenty days.106
Iraqi militants selected to train in Iran traveled to camps well inside the country through several well-organized ratlines, a mirror image of those moving weapons into Iraq. According to the statements of Iraqi detainees, Amara, a city in southeastern Iraq, served as a hub for the movement of militants into Iran. Iraqi militants flocked to Mahdi Army and Special Groups safe houses in Amara from the predominantly Shi’a areas where they were recruited. One Special Groups militant described the process, as summarized in a US intelligence report:
When the training travel was ready, [redacted] would call the SG (Special Group) areas and have the trainees travel to Amara. The trainees would usually travel by taxi, a seven to eight passenger vehicle, to the Baghdad garage in Amara. Once in Amara, the trainees would contact [redacted] and inform him of their arrival. [Redacted] would arrange to have someone, usually [redacted][,] meet the trainees and take them to an Amara SG safe house. [Redacted] would meet the trainees at the safe house where he would provide each 100 USD, brief them on their travel and what to be aware of, and verify their passports. The trainees would then wait at the safe house until [redacted] told them it was time to depart for Iran. The trainees would again use taxis, usually seven to eight person vehicles, in their travel to the Iranian and Iraqi border.107
Some trainees reported crossing the border legally, others illegally. Either way, once across they met Iranian guides who escorted them to safe houses and hotels in the nearby Iranian border towns of Ahvez and Kermanshah. From there, the Qods Force arranged for the trainees to catch flights to Tehran. Once in Iran’s capital, Special Groups members stayed in apartments on the city’s outskirts, where preliminary training took place indoors. Trainees also described riding a bus two or three hours away from Tehran to “military style training complexes manned by uniformed Iranian soldiers.”108
Despite the pledges of senior Iranian leaders to cease such support, Defense Intelligence Agency director Burgess told Congress in 2010, “Iran continues to provide money, weapons and training to select Iraqi Shia militants and terrorists.” In Iran, Gen. Ronald Burgess added, “the Qods Force or Lebanese Hezbollah-led training includes: small arms, reconnaissance, small unit tactics, and communications.” The training that the Qods Force and Hezbollah provided shed significant light on the kinds of operations Iran sought to see proliferate in Iraq. In particular, the focus was on providing elite trainees the “training, tactics and technology” to conduct assassinations and kidnappings and handle IEDs and EFPs. Other training focused on intelligence and sniper operations.109
The twenty-day basic training course experienced by most trainees covered paramilitary skills and basic weapons training, including training with mortars, IEDs, and small arms. Among graduates, a smaller number would be selected for a more intense, advanced paramilitary course that stressed advanced operations and tactics. Trainees in this course would be expected to take on leadership roles, and the material therefore included topics such as logistics and support, weapons employment, explosives engineering, tactics, and information operations.110
For an even more select group, the Qods Force and Hezbollah offered two additional programs: a master trainer program and an elite Special Forces course. Given the cost, logistical barriers, and other risks associated with covertly bringing Iraqis to Iran for training, instituting a “train the trainer” component to the Qods Force/Hezbollah program just made sense. Far more trainees could be reached if Iraqi instructors could offer training courses in Iraq. As one Special Groups recruiter told a trainee selected for a third round of training in Iran, this time for the master trainer course, “I want to send you over there because you’re an educated guy, so we’ll send you to Iran.… You’re gonna have some experiences and with this experience you’re gonna pass it to your friends.”111 Iran did not want its fingerprints all over the training program, a detained Iraqi militant would later explain, seeking instead to develop an independent Iraqi training program that could not be traced back to the Islamic Republic.112
Over the course of 2006–7, several Special Groups members noted in their debriefings, sixteen operatives made several trips to Iran to take the master trainer course. Four specialized in EFPs; four in mortars and rockets; four in conventional weapons; and four in tactical and guerrilla warfare such as booby traps, kidnappings, and attacks on coalition bases and convoys.113 In April 2008, a US senator asked General Petraeus if it would be fair to say that Iranian-backed Special Groups in Iraq were responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians. “It certainly is,” Petraeus answered.114
As for the Special Forces training, that seems to have been tailored to specific trainees or specific needs. Some detained militants described a thirty-day course that included swimming, diving, fitness, and driving. Others described a twelve-day course focused on tactics and use of the Iranian-produced Strella antiaircraft missile, courses on advanced sniper skills, and even the unenviable though critical courses in administration and management. Interestingly, some of these courses were offered in Lebanon as well as Iran.115
Some Iraqi Shi’a traveled through Iran en route to Syria and then Lebanon, where they were trained by Hezbollah experts. These trainees made their way to Tehran using the same facilitation networks as those remaining in Iran for training, but then caught flights to Syria and traveled overland from Damascus International Airport to and across the Lebanese border. Excerpts from a US intelligence report, which paraphrases a detained Iraqi militant’s description of his travel to a training camp in Lebanon, document the operational security involved in transporting the Iraqi Shi’a militants from the Damascus airport to Lebanon. On his arrival in Damascus on a commercial flight from Iran, the detainee and his fellow Iraqi trai
nees were met halfway down the jetway by an unidentified male who collected their tickets and baggage tags. They were led away from the passenger terminal to the airport operations area, where they boarded a bus. After driving through farmland, the trainees were instructed to board different vehicles operated by Lebanese drivers.116
Some of the Iraqi trainees appear to have been selected for additional training in Lebanon after completing some training in Iran. In other cases, possibly those of more experienced fighters, candidates went straight to Lebanon without first training in Iran. Hezbollah and IRGC instructors both reportedly concurred that the paramilitary training Hezbollah provided in Lebanon was superior to the training provided in Iran.117 Whereas most Iraqi trainees appear to have attended a three-to four-week course focused on management of paramilitary activities, others attended courses on management of personnel and project planning and still others on advanced intelligence training, with an emphasis on collecting intelligence on coalition forces in Iraq. Meanwhile, even as Hezbollah trained Iraqi militants in Lebanon on behalf of the Qods Force, the Qods Force continued to operate training camps of its own in Lebanon, where, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency testified, it trains Hezbollah operatives “and other fighters.”118
Wherever they trained, Iraqi militants could never have been as lethally effective as they were without the $750,000 to $3 million a month in funding and arms they received from Iran. “Without this support,” US military authorities concluded, “these special groups would be hard pressed to conduct their operations in Iraq.”119 Asked the source of the 107-millimeter rockets Shi’a insurgents were firing on the Green Zone in Baghdad, General Petraeus replied succinctly, “They come from Iran.” By early 2008, 107-millimeter rockets were turning up in seized weapons caches, with forty-five found in one cache alone, which also included several thousand pounds of explosives, all from Iran. Included among detainees who explained the Special Groups’ process to officials were Qods Force operatives and Special Groups leaders and financiers.120 Speaking in summer 2008, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani acknowledged that “there have been several occasions” when Hezbollah operatives or people who “claim to belong to Hezbollah” were detained in Iraq. Aside from Ali Moussa Daqduq, Iraqi military sources noted the April 2008 arrest of a Hezbollah operative identified only as Faris.121