US: Iran is training Iraqi Shias to use armour-piercing munitions inside Iran and at camps in Lebanon run by the Shia militant group Hizbullah, a senior US intelligence official claimed yesterday.
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, newly installed US intelligence chief Mike McConnell said it was "probable" that Iranian leaders including Ayatollah Ali Khameini were aware that weapons known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, had been supplied to Iraqi Shias.
The Pentagon blames EFPs for the deaths of 170 US troops since 2004. But Mr McConnell, in his first congressional testimony as the US director of national intelligence, stopped short of saying Iran was directing the EFP attacks against US forces in Iraq.
"We know there are Iranian weapons manufactured in Iran. We know that Quds Forces [of Iran's Revolutionary Guards] are bringing them [ into Iraq]," Mr McConnell said at a panel hearing on world threats facing the United States.
"Is there a direct link from Quds Forces delivering weapons to the most senior leadership in Iran? I would phrase it as 'probable' but, again, no direct link . . . I am comfortable saying it's probable." Under questioning by Senator Joe Lieberman, Mr McConnell tersely acknowledged that the United States had evidence showing that Iran was training Iraqi Shias at sites outside Iraq to use EFPs.
"And some of that training is occurring in Iran?" Mr Lieberman asked.
"Yes, sir," Mr McConnell replied.
"I've heard reports that some may be occurring in Lebanon in Hizbullah training camps," Senator Lieberman said.
"We believe Hizbullah is involved in the training as well," Mr McConnell answered.
Tehran denies any role in supplying the arms, and other US officials, including President Bush, have said the United States cannot prove complicity by Iran's leaders.
US vice-president Dick Cheney was whisked into a bomb shelter immediately after a Taliban suicide bomber struck the main American military base he was visiting in Afghanistan yesterday.
Up to 14 people were killed, including one US and one South Korean soldier, in the Bagram air base attack which rebels said was aimed at Mr Cheney.
He had been in his room at the base where he had unexpectedly had to stay the night after bad weather forced postponement of his trip to the capital, Kabul, about 60km away.
"They moved me for a relatively brief period of time to one of the bomb shelters nearby," said Mr Cheney. "As the situation settled down and they got a better sense in terms of what was going on, then I went back to my room until it was time to leave."
Taliban spokesman Mullah Hayat Khan said by phone from an undisclosed location: "We wanted to target . . . Cheney."
Mr Cheney later flew home to Washington via Muscat.