Official: Iraq militia backed by Iran

By Barbara Starr and Chelsea J. Carter, CNNcnnAuthor = "By Barbara Starr and Chelsea J. Carter, CNN"; var clickExpire = "-1";The site of an explosion in Karbala on January 20, 2011. The city was targeted in a spate of attacks across Iraq.Materials found following recent attacks have been traced to Iran, official saysIraqi forces have begun cracking down on militias near Iran's borderU.S. military says it has not been asked to assist in the crackdown

(CNN) -- American officials say there is strong evidence that Shiite militias in Iraq are using Iranian weapons to attack U.S. troops, comments that followed reports that Iraqi security forces began cracking down on the groups near Iran's border.

Materials found following recent attacks against U.S. troops "have been traced back to Iranian origin," an official told CNN. The claim supports the U.S. military position that the militias are backed by Iran, a charge Tehran has long denied.

The material collected indicates the militias are using Iranian materials in "Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munitions" attacks against U.S. forces, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Saturday. The official was not authorized to release the information to the media.

The munitions, or IRAMS, are metal canisters packed with explosives and propelled by rockets. IRAMS along with armor-piercing grenades are believed responsible for the majority of U.S. deaths in recent months, the official said.

The official acknowledged the weapons could have been assembled and manufactured elsewhere, but said IRAMS are a signature weapon of the militant group Kataib Hezbollah, which is "funded by Iran and receives training there. "

The news about the weapons arose as Iraqi security forces began a crackdown in the volatile Maysan province, a Shiite stronghold in southern Iraq that serves as one of the main arteries from Iran.

The U.S. military has not been asked by the Iraqi government "to provide any substantial assistance so far to the operations reported in Maysan province," Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, told CNN.

Iraq's southern provinces make up the majority of the Shiite heartland, home to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf. It is in this area where a majority of the Shiite militia attacks have been launched against U.S. troops, who operate from a number of bases in the region.

"While it is clear these militias receive training and weapons from Iran -- using them as proxies for Iran's own agendas in the region -- we have no evidence of Iranian forces being directly engaged in the recent violence in Iraq," Buchanan said in an email late Saturday.

Buchanan said the United States is encouraged by the Iraqi operation, though the security in Iraq remains complex.

While violence has dramatically fallen off since the height of sectarian violence that nearly tore the country apart, attacks and bombings remain a daily occurrence.

The recent increase in attacks pushed June's death toll to the highest this year for Iraqi security forces and civilians. More than 270 people, including 155 civilians, were killed in attacks, Iraqi authorities said.

Fourteen U.S. soldiers were also killed in combat-related incidents in June, the largest loss of life among U.S. troops in Iraq since 2008, according to CNN figures.

The roughly 47,000 American troops in Iraq are due to withdraw by January 1, 2012, under a U.S.-Iraqi security pact, though Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is consulting with lawmakers over whether to request troops stay beyond the deadline.

The U.S. military has said the Shiite-militias -- Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib al Haq, and the Promise Day Brigade -- are using the bombings to try to take credit for driving American forces out of the country.

"If anything, these groups have proven to be resilient and we have no doubt they will continue to conduct violent attacks in the months ahead," Buchanan said.

He said Iraq's best weapon against the violence was to continue targeting the groups.

CNN's Fattah Mahmood Fattah contributed to this report.

CNN

U.S: Shiite militia likely behind killings

An Iraqi police officer works at a checkpoint in Baghdad, a day after five U.S. soldiers were killed.A Shiite militia is claiming responsibility for the deaths of five soldiers in IraqOfficial: "We have been anticipating that we would see an increase in attacks"U.S. troops in Iraq have increasingly been targeted by roadside bombings and mortar attacksThe U.S. military says it will continue it efforts to find those responsible

(CNN) -- An attack that killed five American soldiers in Iraq is likely the work of a Shiite militia attempting to take credit for driving forces out of the country, the U.S. military said.

The attack was followed by a purported claim of responsibility for the killings by one such group.

The Monday killings were the single largest loss of life among U.S. troops in Iraq since 2009. More on the killings

They come as Iraq debates whether to request American soldiers stay beyond a January 1, 2012, deadline that requires 46,000 forces out of the country.

"We have been anticipating that we would see an increase in attacks as U.S. forces prepare to transition our mission," Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, spokesman for U.S. Forces-Iraq, told CNN late Saturday in an e-mail.

"Our assessment is that groups like the Iranian-backed militias: Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib al-Haq, and the Promise Day Brigade, are attempting to claim credit for driving US forces out of Iraq to garner prestige by conducting these attacks."

Congressman reportedly asks Iraq to consider repaying U.S.

In a statement posted on one of its websites, Kataib Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack at Camp Loyalty, on the outskirts of Baghdad that killed five soldiers and wounded at least five others.

CNN cannot independently verify the legitimacy of the claim.

The U.S. military maintains that Kataib Hezbollah and the other Shiite militias are backed by Iran, a charge it has long denied.

U.S. troops have increasingly been targeted by roadside bombings and mortar attacks, largely in Baghdad and southern Iraq -- a Shiite stronghold.

While al Qaeda in Iraq -- predominantly Iraqi Sunni insurgents -- continue to launch strikes, the U.S. military has said that militia attacks against American troops are designed to flex their strength and take credit for an anticipated U.S. withdrawal at the end of the year.

In the e-mail, Buchanan said the U.S. military would continue to take steps to protect its troops in Iraq.

"We will not tire in our efforts to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice," he said.

Under a U.S.-Iraqi security pact, which set a timetable to withdraw American forces, U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by Jan. 1, 2012.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is consulting with members of his government about whether to ask American troops to stay beyond the deadline, though the U.S. military says there has been no official request by al-Maliki to President Barack Obama about any such extension.

Many in Iraq are vehemently opposed to U.S. troops staying beyond the deadline.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has threatened to end a 2007 cease-fire and "escalate armed resistance" of his militia, if U.S. troops remain beyond the deadline.

CNN

Notorious Hutu militia leader captured

The Hutu militia, known as the Interahamwe, was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Rwanda in the 1990s.Bernard Munyagishari is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, including rapeHe was detained in an operation led by Congolese troops, the tribunal for Rwanda saysThe tribunals for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia are both making progress

(CNN) -- One of the most notorious leaders of the Rwandan Hutu militia in the 1990s has been apprehended in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) announced Thursday.

Bernard Munyagishari was wanted by the tribunal on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, including rape.

The announcement of his capture was almost a side note in the struggle to bring to justice those indicted for crimes against humanity, coming as it did on the same day that Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic was apprehended after a more-than-15-year manhunt.

Mladic: Commander turned fugitive

In the spring of 1994, the international community was preoccupied with the Bosnian Serbs' campaign of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, a campaign that would culminate the following year in a massacre at Srebrenica. But at the same time, thousands of miles away, Hutu militia were beginning a rampage across Rwanda, unhindered by any international intervention. Munyagishari was allegedly one of their leaders.

The militia, known as the Interahamwe, was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Rwanda as they set about a campaign of genocide against ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutu. An estimated 800,000 people were killed in three months of massacres and arbitrary executions.

Munyagishari was detained in an operation led by Congolese troops in a remote and forested area of north Kivu, the ICTR said. He is currently being held in Goma in Congo, awaiting transfer to the tribunal, which is based in Arusha in Tanzania.

According to an indictment published in 2005, Munyagishari led the Interahamwe in the district of Gisenye. It alleges that long before the genocide occurred, Munyagishari was training and distributing weapons to Interahamwe groups to enable them "more efficiently to attack and kill the Tutsis and Hutu opponents."

Early in 1994 he is alleged to have spread rumors that Tutsi were poisoning the water supply and "masterminded a virulent hate campaign against the Tutsis."

In April 1994, the indictment alleges, Munyagishari "selected Tutsis and ordered his Interahamwe to take them to be killed and buried at the 'Commune Rouge,'" an infamous cemetery in Gisenye. He also created a special militia "to rape Tutsi women and girls before killing them" and was allegedly involved in an attack on a Catholic church where many Tutsis had taken refuge.

That attack took place in the same week that US F-16 jets attacked the positions of Mladic's forces as they lay siege to the Bosnian town of Gorazde.

For years it seemed that both the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the ICTR were destined to be expensive failures, unable to bring those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice. There was also widespread criticism of the ICTR for its perceived failure to prosecute those accused of crimes of sexual violence.

But as the years have passed, the political landscape has changed and hiding places have shrunk. The old generation of Serbian hardliners has lost influence and the young republic has eyes on joining the European Union. In central Africa, after years of antagonism, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have begun cooperating on a range of issues, from trade to tackling the militia rife in eastern Congo.

Such tribunals are expensive. Both the ICTR and the Yugoslav tribunal cost more than $130 million a year to sustain. And they move slowly as evidence is collected and translated, defense teams assembled and the scope of international law tested.

Both courts have focused on bringing to justice the alleged architects of atrocities rather than the foot soldiers, in a calculated message to any who might contemplate such strategies in the future. And in the view of Antonio Cassese, the former president of the Yugoslav tribunal, "Justice is an indispensable ingredient of the process of national reconciliation. ... It breaks the cycle of violence, hatred and extra-judicial retribution.'

Eventually some of the most wanted figures from both Rwanda's genocide and the civil war in the former Yugoslavia -- not all of them Serbs by any means -- have been brought to trial.

At the ICTR, 32 cases have been completed and nine accused remain at large. A further 22 cases are currently being heard. At The Hague, the Yugoslav tribunal has charged more than 160 people, including heads of government and high-level military figures. More than 60 have been convicted and more than 40 are in various stages of proceedings.

Add to that list: Ratko Mladic and Bernard Munyagishari.

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