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| Iran Denies Supplying Arms to Militants |
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Iran rejected US accusations Monday that the highest levels of the Iranian leadership have armed insurgents in Iraq with armor-piercing roadside bombs. "Such accusations cannot be relied upon or be presented as evidence. The United States has a long history in fabricating evidence. Such charges are unacceptable," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters. US military officials in Baghdad on Sunday accused the Iranian leadership of arming Shi'ite militants in Iraq with the sophisticated bombs that have killed more than 170 troops from the American-led coalition. The deadly and highly sophisticated weapons the US military said it traced to Iran are known as "explosively formed penetrators", or EFPs. Three senior military officials in Baghdad said the "machining process" used in the construction of the deadly bombs had been traced to Iran. But Hosseini said Iran's top leaders were not intervening in Iraq and considered "any intervention in Iraq's internal affairs as a weakening of the popular Iraqi government, and we are opposed to that." The US military presentation in Baghdad was the result of weeks of preparation as US officials put together a package of material to support claims by President George W. Bush's administration of Iranian intercession on behalf of militant Iraqis fighting American forces. The US military experts alleged that the supply trial began with Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, which they said report directly to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US officials in Baghdad claimed the EFPs, as well as Iranian-made mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades, have been supplied to "rogue elements" of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is a key backer of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Also Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the likelihood of a US attack on his country is "very low", but that any attack against Iran would be "severely punished"." Ahmadinejad told ABC television that he did not fear an attack from the United States. "Fear? Why should we be afraid? First, the possibility is very low," he said. But he added: "Our nation has made it clear that anyone who wants to attack our country will be severely punished." Meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers approved plans Monday for implementing UN sanctions against Iran, a move that is meant to punish Teheran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. The plan follows agreement by the UN Security Council in December to impose sanctions targeting people and programs linked to Iran's nuclear program, which the EU and others fear is being used to make nuclear weapons. (China Daily via agencies February 13, 2007) |
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