www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9067891/site/newsweek
Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball-Terror Watch Insurgency Instructions A video probably made by Hizbullah-and possibly Iran-is helping Iraqi ins urgents wage their war.
Others say they need more evid ence, but assert that the Lebanon-based Shiite militia Hizbullah is almo st certainly aiding Iraq's anti-government guerillas. These analysts point to recent sophisticated insurgent attacks on armored US military vehicles using home-made anti-tank weapons with "shaped" explosive charges. According to a US counter-terrorism official famili ar with the attacks (who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivi ty of the subject), many of these home-made devices, known among US bo mb-disposal personnel as EFPs (Explosively Formed Penetrators), appear t o be constructed according to instructions contained on CD-ROM formatted videos distributed by Hizbullah, which maintains close ties to hard-lin e religious factions in the Iranian government. Another counter-terroris m official said that "equipment" has also been recovered from Iraqi insu rgents that US analysts suspected had originated in Iran. "It is true that weapons clearly, unambiguously from Iran have been found in Iraq," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asserted earlier this month. According to a counter-terrorism official, two different types of instruc tional Hizbullah-made videos have been recovered by US forces from Ira qi insurgents. One explains in great detail how to manufacture home-made explosives that can be used in EFPs. Another explains how to shape the home-made explosive (or for that matter a factory-made or black-market e xplosive) into an EFP charge, and then how to build an improvised EFP la uncher using a length of pipe and a metal projectile. The Arabic-language videos are slickly produced and of "studio quality," complete with dramatic music and subtitles, said a US official who has reviewed the material. The high-quality production values have led some analysts to speculate that they may well have been produced by an eleme nt of the Iranian government with access to professional television equi pment. Other analysts note, however, that Hizbullah has its own televisi on station and therefore access to high-quality video equipment and pers onnel. One reason US officials have little doubt that Hizbullah is behind the CD-ROMs found in Iraq is that virtually identical discs were discovered aboard arms-smuggling ships intercepted during the past few years by Isr aeli military forces, according to a US counter-terrorism official. In May 2003, Israeli commandos captured the Abu Hassan, a small fishing bo at, off the coast near Lebanon. Its cargo allegedly included both bomb-m aking equipment and among its passengers were an alleged bomb maker name d Abu Amar. According news reports at the time, the Israelis seized from Abu Amar 36 CD-ROMs containing bomb-making instructions-discs with the same or strikingly similar content to those recently recovered inside Ir aq.
|
http://csua.com/feed/