Iran targeting British troops in Iraq - report

Iran Focus:

London, Sep. 11 – Iran is examining ways to step up attacks against British forces based in southern Iraq, an Arabic television channel quoted a former officer in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as saying on Saturday.

The former Iranian officer, who was a colonel in the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Qods Force, revealed that two IRGC officers based at Ramadan Garrison near the Iran-Iraq border had recently met with four commanders of Ansar al-Islam and Jihad Organisation to “examine ways of stepping up armed operations against British forces in southern Iraq”, the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV said.

The Qods Force, the extra-territorial arm of the IRGC, is tasked with exporting the Islamic revolution to other countries. The force, which is under the command of IRGC Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani, spearheads the Iranian government’s extensive clandestine operations in Iraq.

The former IRGC colonel said that the meeting was meant to promote relations between Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Ansar al-Islam in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Jihad Organisation, which operates in central and southern Iraq.

The source added that Iran’s Qods Force had some time go trained several commanders of the Shiite Badr Brigade, the military wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), to step up and intensify attacks against British servicemen in Iraq.