Hezbollah is training Iraqi Shia militias
Two Iraqi MPs from the Sadr bloc who participated in the establishment of the Mahdi Army in Iraq in 2003 said that Hezbollah officials trained Shia militants three months ago in the Naa military training camp in the south of the country.
“Later on, the Hezbollah officials crossed into Iran, where they are supposed to be carrying out the rest of their mission on Iranian soil,” the MPs said on condition of anonymity.
The information was confirmed by a high-ranking officer of the Iraqi army, who also did not reveal his name.
The two MPs also claimed that Hezbollah activists were involved in planning some of the bloodiest attacks carried out against the US-led Iraqi coalition, including the 2007 attack against the Karbala compound, which resulted in the death of five US soldiers.
“Iranians prefer to use Arabic-speaking instructors, because it is easier to liaise with the Iraqi Shia, as Iranian instructors speak Farsi,” the MPs said.
They noted that Hezbollah started training Shia militias in Iraq as of the second half of 2006 in the Al-Deir and Al-Koutayban training camps east of the city of Bassora, near the Iranian border.
“They fled into Iran in late March and the beginning of April, when the US-supported Iraqi troops launched an attack against Shia militias in Bassora.
An Iraqi officer quoted members of the trained groups that were arrested as saying that there were no more than ten Hezbollah instructors.
“They are always moving secretly through the border,” the officer said. “In addition to the arrest of a Hezbollah activist known as Fares last April in Bassora, another activist, Ali Moussa Daqdouk was arrested in July 2007.”