BAGHDAD — A U.S. military spokesman accused Iranian leaders Monday of using guerrillas from Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group to train militiamen fighting American troops in Iraq.
The Hezbollah guerrillas also have organized attacks in Iraq, he said, including a January ambush on an Iraqi-U.S. outpost that killed five American soldiers.
The United States has repeatedly accused the Shiite Muslim-led government in Tehran of aiding Shiite Muslims and even Sunni Arab forces opposed to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, charges Iran has denied.
Monday's accusations included the added twist of the alleged Hezbollah connection, which Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, the military spokesman, said became clear with the arrest in March of a man identified as a Lebanese-born Hezbollah operative.
A Hezbollah spokesman in Beirut told Reuters news service he was aware of Bergner's accusations but had no comment.
Bergner said the operative, whom he identified as Ali Musa Daqduq, was carrying a false ID and pretended to be a deaf-mute when he was detained March 20 in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
A few weeks later, Bergner said, interviews as well as computer records and other material confirmed that Daqduq had served Hezbollah for 24 years, including coordinating protection of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.
At the time of his capture, Daqduq was carrying documents that described tactics for attacking Iraqi and U.S. forces, one of which Bergner displayed at a news conference Monday. Daqduq also carried a journal detailing his involvement with Iraqi militants who attempted to attack British, Iraqi and U.S. forces in southern Iraq and in Diyala province.
In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini derided the accusations as well as Daqduq's purported account.
"It is another silly and ridiculous scenario brought up by Americans based on a baseless remark of a person," he told The Times in a brief telephone interview. "It is a sheer lie, and it is ridiculous."
Bergner said that Daqduq was captured along with two Iraqi brothers, Qais and Laith Khazali, and that all three were working with Iran to develop a Hezbollah-like network of cells in Iraq called the Iraqi Special Groups. Iran's secretive Quds Force, a unit of its Revolutionary Guard, was overseeing the training, which cost between $750,000 and $3 million a month and included instruction at three camps near Tehran, Bergner said.
