Newsweek: Quds Force have close relationship with Iraqi president, also helped US fight Taliban

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17175607/site/newsweek/

<snip>

Just who are the Quds Force? And how good is the intelligence on them, really? A NEWSWEEK investigation shows that the evidence against the Quds Force is still questionable, and that some of the key Iraqi politicians Washington is relying on most, such as Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, have had close relations with the Iranian group. The United States found itself on the same side as the Quds Force after 9/11 in the fight against the Taliban, when Quds supported the leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Masoud.

...


After Masoud was assassinated by Al Qaeda operatives on Sept. 9., 2001, Quds Force members helped the U.S.-assisted Northern Alliance cross the Kokcha River between Tajikistan and Afghanistan and advance toward Kabul to oust the Taliban, according to Iranian officials.

Perhaps no one has benefited from the Quds Force’s patronage more than the current president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, who is also a close U.S. ally. Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party was Iran’s main ally in northern Iraq during the 1980s. When fighting broke out between rival Kurdish groups in the mid-'90s, the Quds Force fought on Talabani’s side against Massoud Barzani, whose Kurdish party had asked for Saddam Hussein’s help.

...

But the documentation remains scant. And considerable doubts continue to surface about the intelligence presented at the Baghdad slide show, including the fact that the U.N. Ambassador Zarif also says that the date markings are American-style—that is, the month comes first. “There is every reason to believe that this evidence is fabricated,” he said. U.S. officials say the weapons were apparently built for the international market. Asked why the writing on the weapons allegedly made in Iran was in English, one U.S. intelligence official responded: “That’s a very good question.” It is one of many questions about the Quds Force that has yet to be answered.
...

[Emit]

1. Thanks for this sabra

I appreciate some of the recent threads you've put out on this subject.

[sabra]

2. thanks, and I appreciate your post :-)

Seems like BushCo's attempt to pin things on Iran didn't go exactly as planned...

[rodeodance]

3. we are in a tangled dangerous web and our troops will pay a price

[SmokingJacket]

7. Another K & R . nt

[The Magistrate]

4. We Are Simply So Out Of Our League In This, Sir

Comment on it may be safely left to Mr. Kipling....

Now it is not good
For the Christian’s health
To hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles
And the Aryan smiles
And he wear-eth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight
Is a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear,
“A fool lies here
Who tried to hustle the East."

[sabra]

6. hopefully we can survive the next 2 years with out triggering another

war...

[5X]

5. I'm gonna K and R, n/t

[Tin Man]

8. Good thing we've positioned ourselves in the heart of the Middle East...

It's gonna be so much easier to straighten-out all these tangled regional conflicts and tribal allegiences that have been millennia in the making! We'll have it fixed in no time flat!







:sarcasm:

[Solly Mack]

9. The incestuous nature of it all

now we're getting closer to some truth

[bigtree]

10. heh. this is typical.

contrast this info with the breathless headline:

"Inside the Quds Force: America's New Enemy?"

[underpants]

11. The initial "anonymous" briefing served its only purpose

and dutifully the media picked it up and crammed it down everyone's throat before daring to question it.