From FOX News: Iran's Revolutionary Guards: We Will 'Punch' U.S.
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said they would not bow to pressure and threatened to "punch" the U.S., in their first response to Washington's plan to list them as a terrorist organization, newspapers reported Saturday.Local press in the Iranian capital of Tehran quoted Revolutionary Guards leader Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi saying that he could understand Washington's ire toward the group because of their "leverage" against the U.S.
"America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future," he was quoted as saying in the conservative daily Kayhan. "We will never remain silent in the face of U.S. pressure and we will use our leverage against them."
There was no elaboration on what Safavi meant by the punch or the organization's "leverage."
From FOX News: U.S Troops Tracking Iranian Forces Aiding Shiite Militias in Iraq.
American forces are tracking about 50 members of an elite Iranian force who have crossed the border into southern Iraq to train Shiite militia fighters, a top U.S. general said Sunday. ...Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, whose command includes the volatile southern rim of Baghdad and districts to the south, said his troops are tracking about 50 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps in their area — the first detailed allegation that Iranians have been training fighters within Iraq's borders.
"We know they're here and we target them as well," he said, citing intelligence reports as evidence of their presence.
He declined to be more specific and said no Iranian forces have been arrested in his territory.
"We've got about 50 of those," he said, referring to the Iranian forces. "They go back and forth. There's a porous border."
From The Washington Times editorial page: Serial killers of Americans. (via TIA Daily)
The IRGC [Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], through its longstanding relationship with Hezbollah, has the blood of hundreds of Americans on its hands — among them the 241 American servicemen who were killed in the Oct. 23, 1983, bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. In essence, SDGT designation will treat the Revolutionary Guards, who are heavily involved in obtaining nuclear weapons technology and supporting terrorist organizations, much the same as the Cali and Medellin drug cartels, making it possible to move relatively quickly to seize the organization's business assets — which are substantial. Federal officials said that the IRGC would become the first military branch of a national government to be included on the terrorism list — which generally consists of non-state actors.
For more on Iran's war in Iraq, see the links in this post: State of War.
Posted by Forkum at August 20, 2007 03:07 PM
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