U.S. officials contend that Iraqi recruits from the Mahdi Army have traveled in groups numbering between 20 and 60 to Iran in a training program organized by the Quds Forces that dates back to 2004. Once inside Iran, U.S. officials say, Quds Force handlers transport recruits to training camps near Tehran. It's there, allegedly, that Iraqi militia fighters hone skills needed to effectively use EFPs, mortars and rockets against targets in Iraq.
Quds Force trainers, working at times apparently with experienced instructors from the Lebanese militia Hizballah, also school Iraqi guerrillas in intelligence techniques, sniper shooting and kidnapping operations before transporting them back across the border. Once inside Iraq again, militants who've undergone Iranian training reportedly form cells that U.S. officials now refer to as "special groups." These cells, U.S. officials say, then continue to receive weapons, funds and direction from the Quds Force as they unleash some of the bloodiest violence American forces face.
"The Quds Force goal was to develop the Iraqi special groups into a network similar to the Lebanese Hizballah," says Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq. "Special groups would be unable to conduct their terrorist attacks in Iraq without Iranian-supplied weapons and other support."
Bergner says U.S. forces have taken more than 20 special groups operatives off the streets of Iraq this year, and a military intelligence officer tells TIME that several of the captured fighters have detailed the training they underwent in Iran during interrogations.
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