Iran's spy-game in Iraq leaked
Hundreds of leaked Iranian intelligence reports reveal a spy network built by Iran in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Husein.
Secret documents revealed by The New York Times and The Intercept on Monday offer a detailed portrait of just how aggressively Tehran has worked to embed itself into Iraqi affairs.
It mentions the unique role of one General (Qasem) Soleimani.
NYT and the online portal says they verified around 700 pages of reports written mainly in 2014 and 2015 by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
The documents were sent to The Intercept anonymously.
But the person who leaked the documents had written the aim was to “let the world know what Iran is doing in my country Iraq”.
ANTI-SAUDI PLATFORM
With the fall of Saddam, Iranian officials from the powerful Shia organisation, the Quds Force met with Muslim Brotherhood members in a hotel in Turkey.
The negotiations were to build an alliance against Saudi Arabia.
There were also public meetings between Iranian and Egyptian officials during the Muslim Brotherhood reign.
But after President Morsi was overthrown by the army and arrested, which later led to his death in detention.
An Iranian intelligence cable about the 2014 meeting provides an intriguing glimpse of secret efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian officials to maintain contact. That was after Morsi was removed from power.
Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was to meet with three of the Brotherhood’s most prominent Egyptian leaders in exile: Ibrahim Munir Mustafa, Mahmoud El-Abiary, and Youssef Moustafa Nada.
But since the meeting was to be held in Turkey, and Istanbul was not happy with Suleimani, they did not grant him a visa.
The meeting between the Quds and the Brotherhood went on with Abu Hussain replacing Suleimani.
One of the most important things the groups shared, the Muslim Brotherhood representatives said, was a hatred for Saudi Arabia.
They talked on the situation in Iraq and they talked of the hatred for the Saudis.
But the Brotherhood did not want the help of Iran in the Egyptian affairs.
The apparent eagerness to forge an alliance, however, fell apart when the Iranians accused the Brotherhood of insulting the Quds force.
During the meeting, the delegation emphasized that the Brotherhood was committed to a “reformist and peaceful approach” to change in the Middle East.
The observation seemed to imply that the Quds Force was not and there were assumptions the Brotherhood were more patient than the Iranians.
Friends of the Quds Force present in the meeting disagreed on an alliance between Shia and Sunnis, according to the leaked report on the meeting.
US LOST CONTROL OF IRAQ
The Intercept says, “The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq marked the moment when the U.S. lost control of its own bloody chess game.
“The chaos unleashed by the U.S. invasion allowed Iran to gain a level of influence in Iraq that was unfathomable during the reign of Saddam.”
This is exactly what WFTV has foretold in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, that is they are opening a pandora’s box.
It was a brainer that the U.S. was inadvertently or not, handing over Iraq into the hands of Iran.
Which is what Iran did, that is taking control of the country and build a network so vast that Iraq is a mini-Iran.
In the report called ‘Iran Cables’, there are reports of Iran building its network to fight ISIS in an undercover war.
While the U.S. started the de-Baathification it gave the rise to sectarian politics. Iran’s game was made easier by the frenzy Americans.
On top of that, the U.S. was arming, training, and funding Shia death squads that terrorized Sunni communities.
As the position of the Sunnis became increasingly untenable, we saw the rise of groups like the Al Qaeda and later, the Islamic State of Iraq and the L’Evant or ISIL
The leaked intelligence reports show the sectarian bloodletting that started with the U.S. invasion has never really ended.