Iran Directly Supplying Al-Sadr Militias?

US Intelligence has confirmed that Iranian sources are directly supplying Shiite militias with IEDs and other weapons used against US troops, ABC reports.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq's growing Shia militias from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.


Evidence is mounting, too, that the most powerful militia in Iraq, Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, is receiving training support from the Iranian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah.

Two senior U.S. defense officials confirmed to ABC News earlier reports that fighters from the Mahdi army have traveled to Lebanon to receive training from Hezbollah.

While the New York Times reported that as many as 2,000 Iraqi militia fighters had received training in Lebanon, one of the senior officials said he believed the number was "closer to 1,000." Officials say a much smaller number of Hezbollah fighters have also traveled through Syria and into Iraq to provide training.

U.S. intelligence officials believe the number of Al-Sadr's Mahdi army now includes 40,000 fighters, making it an especially formidable force.

The choice for US policy planners is a political one. The crazed Iranian president made his political career in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and to allow him and his henchmen in the Iranian government to get away with this international law-breaking would compound the original felony, committed two years ago, of not taking on the Al-Sadr militias when they were merely several thousand very vulnerable fighters. Now they number in the dozens of thousands.

The whack-job Iranian president regards American indecision on retaliation as a total victory on his part and it encourages him to expand his activities, and discourages any restraining influences among the highest levels of Iranian elites who may have doubts.

Either the US goes to attack the source of the unrest in Iraq and Lebanon, or it retires in disgrace from the Middle East and lets the EU and UN take over, with Russia as an interested partner.

It's obvious that Ahmedinejad will have the nuke he wants before long, and that it will be transported via camelback to Israel, if need be. Does GWB sit on this information and wring his hands? Has he been completely neutered by this election, which actually was the usual setback for a party in power the sixth year of a presidency?

Are Gates and Baker going to talk to Iran and Syria, even against the august advice of Chiraq?

Inquiring minds want to know.