Sophisticated technology and explosives to make improvised bombs killing US and other troops in Iraq are apparently entering the country virtually unhindered from Iran, a senior British general said today.
Royal Marines Major General James Dutton spoke with reporters in a teleconference from Basra in southern Iraq a day after the Pentagon announced plans to increase efforts to find ways to defend against improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, used by insurgents that are the leading cause of US casualties in the war.
Major General Dutton said he did not know whether the Iranian government or its intelligence service, or perhaps other unspecified groups, were helping Iraqi insurgents smuggle explosives or completed bombs across the porous border into Iraq.
"I simply don't know whether this is official Iranian policy," said Major General Dutton, who commands a 13,000-strong multinational division in southeastern Iraq. "The IED explosives, particularly the advanced technology IEDs ... we believe the technology is coming across that border," Major General Dutton said.
"We're not, regrettably, capturing these arms as they come across the border." "You wouldn't expect me to go into great details about how we know that. But we're pretty convinced that that is where these things are coming from," Major General Dutton added.
Major General Dutton said the devices in question included crude but effective "explosively formed projectiles," which are cylinders filled with explosives and capped with a copper or steel plate.
The plate penetrates the armor of military vehicles, to devastating effect. The general said coalition forces in his region were working closely with the Iraqi government and border security guards to better police the area, and noted that at least one large cache of explosives was found by Iraqi forces in August.