AUGUST 31, 2018 / 10:22 AM / UPDATED AN
HOUR AGO
Exclusive:
Iran moves missiles to Iraq in warning to enemies - sources
John Irish, Ahmed Rasheed
PARIS/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iran has given
ballistic missiles to Shi’ite proxies in Iraq and is developing the capacity to
build more there to deter attacks on its interests in the Middle East and to
give it the means to hit regional foes, Iranian, Iraqi and Western sources
said.
Any sign that Iran is preparing a more
aggressive missile policy in Iraq will exacerbate tensions between Tehran and
Washington, already heightened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to
pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
It would also embarrass France, Germany
and the United Kingdom, the three European signatories to the nuclear deal, as
they have been trying to salvage the agreement despite new U.S. sanctions
against Tehran.
According to three Iranian officials, two
Iraqi intelligence sources and two Western intelligence sources, Iran has
transferred short-range ballistic missiles to allies in Iraq over the last few
months. Five of the officials said it was helping those groups to start making
their own.
“The logic was to have a backup plan if
Iran was attacked,” one senior Iranian official told Reuters. “The number of
missiles is not high, just a couple of dozen, but it can be increased if
necessary.”
Iran has previously said its ballistic
missile activities are purely defensive in nature. Iranian officials declined
to comment when asked about the latest moves.
The Iraqi government and military both
declined to comment.
The Zelzal, Fateh-110 and Zolfaqar
missiles in question have ranges of about 200 km to 700 km, putting Saudi
Arabia’s capital Riyadh or the Israeli city of Tel Aviv within striking
distance if the weapons were deployed in southern or western Iraq.
The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s
powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has bases in both those
areas. Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani is overseeing the programme, three
of the sources said.
SPONSORED
Western countries have already accused
Iran of transferring missiles and technology to Syria and other allies of
Tehran, such as Houthi rebels in Yemen and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Iran’s Sunni Muslim Gulf neighbours and
its arch-enemy Israel have expressed concerns about Tehran’s regional
activities, seeing it as a threat to their security.
Israeli officials did not immediately
respond to requests for comment about the missile transfers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said on Wednesday that anybody that threatened to wipe Israel out “would put
themselves in a similar danger”.
MISSILE PRODUCTION LINE
The Western source said the number of
missiles was in the 10s and that the transfers were designed to send a warning
to the United States and Israel, especially after air raids on Iranian troops
in Syria. The United States has a significant military presence in Iraq.
“It seems Iran has been turning Iraq into
its forward missile base,” the Western source said.
The Iranian sources and one Iraqi
intelligence source said a decision was made some 18 months ago to use militias
to produce missiles in Iraq, but activity had ramped up in the last few months,
including with the arrival of missile launchers.
“We have bases like that in many places
and Iraq is one of them. If America attacks us, our friends will attack
America’s interests and its allies in the region,” said a senior IRGC commander
who served during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
The Western source and the Iraqi source
said the factories being used to develop missiles in Iraq were in
al-Zafaraniya, east of Baghdad, and Jurf al-Sakhar, north of Kerbala. One
Iranian source said there was also a factory in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The areas are controlled by Shi’ite
militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the closest to Iran. Three
sources said Iraqis had been trained in Iran as missile operators.
The Iraqi intelligence source said the
al-Zafaraniya factory produced warheads and the ceramic of missile moulds under
former President Saddam Hussein. It was reactivated by local Shi’ite groups in
2016 with Iranian assistance, the source said.
A team of Shi’ite engineers who used to
work at the facility under Saddam were brought in, after being screened, to
make it operational, the source said. He also said missiles had been tested
near Jurf al-Sakhar.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and
the Pentagon declined to comment.
One U.S official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, confirmed that Tehran over the last few months has transferred
missiles to groups in Iraq but could not confirm that those missiles had any
launch capability from their current positions.
Washington has been pushing its allies to
adopt a tough anti-Iran policy since it reimposed sanctions this month.
While the European signatories to the
nuclear deal have so far balked at U.S. pressure, they have grown increasingly
impatient over Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
France in particular has bemoaned Iranian
“frenzy” in developing and propagating missiles and wants Tehran to open
negotiations over its ballistic weapons.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said
on Thursday that Iran was arming regional allies with rockets and allowing
ballistic proliferation. “Iran needs to avoid the temptation to be the
(regional) hegemon,” he said.
In March, the three nations proposed fresh
EU sanctions on Iran over its missile activity, although they failed to push
them through after opposition from some member states.
“Such a proliferation of Iranian missile
capabilities throughout the region is an additional and serious source of
concern,” a document from the three European countries said at the time.
MESSAGE TO FOES
A regional intelligence source also said
Iran was storing a number of ballistic missiles in areas of Iraq that were
under effective Shi’ite control and had the capacity to launch them.
The source could not confirm that Iran has
a missile production capacity in Iraq.
A second Iraqi intelligence official said
Baghdad had been aware of the flow of Iranian missiles to Shi’ite militias to
help fight Islamic State militants, but that shipments had continued after the
hardline Sunni militant group was defeated.
“It was clear to Iraqi intelligence that
such a missile arsenal sent by Iran was not meant to fight Daesh (Islamic
State) militants but as a pressure card Iran can use once involved in regional
conflict,” the official said.
The Iraqi source said it was difficult for
the Iraqi government to stop or persuade the groups to go against Tehran.
“We can’t restrain militias from firing
Iranian rockets because simply the firing button is not in our hands, it’s with
Iranians who control the push button,” he said.
“Iran will definitely use the missiles it
handed over to Iraqi militia it supports to send a strong message to its foes
in the region and the United States that it has the ability to use Iraqi
territories as a launch pad for its missiles to strike anywhere and anytime it
decides,” the Iraqi official said.
Iraq’s parliament passed a law in 2016 to
bring an assortment of Shi’ite militia groups known collectively as the Popular
Mobilisation Forces (PMF) into the state apparatus. The militias report to
Iraq’s prime minister, who is a Shi’ite under the country’s unofficial
governance system.
However, Iran still has a clear hand in
coordinating the PMF leadership, which frequently meets and consults with
Soleimani.
Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and
Jonathan Landay in Washington; editing by David Clarke
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust
Principles.
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