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Petraeus: Iran Linked to Green Zone Attack
Mar 24, 2008 - Anonymous
On the morning of Sunday March 24, 2008, nearly twenty mortar s and rockets were fired at the heavily-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. While the details of the story are still unfolding, reports are surfacing that several of the rockets and mortars landed near the U.S. Embassy.1 An official at the U.S. Embassy confirmed the indirect fire attack and noted that there were no major casualties to report.2 Several of the mortars fell short of their target and landed in several residential areas of eastern Baghdad, including Kamaliya, Bab al-Sharqi, and Karadah.3Thirteen Iraqis were killed in these attacks.4 According to witness reports, the mortars and rockets were fired from the Beladiat neighborhood of eastern Baghdad, which borders Sadr City.5 This area has been a stronghold not only for Sadr’s Jaysh al-Mahdi, but also for Iranian-backed Special Groups.
U.S. military officials usually decline to comment on such attacks for security reasons; however, General David Petraeus, the Commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, declared today in an interview with the BBC that he had evidence of Iranian involvement in the attack.6 Those responsible for the attack were members of militias known as Special Groups, who had received training, funding, and arms from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF). According to General Petraeus, "The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone yesterday, for example... were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets."7 Violence by Special Groups has been especially alarming in recent months. Their use of especially lethal explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs) and indirect fire attacks has been on the rise in Baghdad.8 This most recent attack, which has been “one of the fiercest and most sustained attacks on the area in the last year,”9 is a further reminder that even as the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq diminishes the long-term threat of Iranian-backed violence persists.
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Endnotes
1Sam Dagher, Green Zone attack originated in Sadr City, say witnesses,” The Christian Science Monitor, March 24, 2008, World, p. 4.
2 Sam Dagher, “Green Zone attack originated in Sadr City, say witnesses,” The Christian Science Monitor, March 24, 2008, World, p. 4
3 Erica Goode, “13 Iraqis Killed by Shells Fired at the Green Zone,” The New York Times, March 24, 2008.
4 Erica Goode, “13 Iraqis Killed by Shells Fired at the Green Zone,” The New York Times, March 24, 2008.
5 Erica Goode, “13 Iraqis Killed by Shells Fired at the Green Zone,” The New York Times, March 24, 2008.
6 “Iran 'behind Green Zone attack',” BBC News, March 24, 2008.
7 “Iran 'behind Green Zone attack',” BBC News, March 24, 2008.
8 See Marisa Cochrane, “The Growing Threat of Special Groups in Baghdad,” Institute for the Study of War Backgrounder #26, March 6, 2008.
9 Erica Goode, “13 Iraqis Killed by Shells Fired at the Green Zone,” The New York Times, March 24, 2008.