U.S. officer: Iran sends Iraq bomb parts

BAGHDAD, Iraq - High-tech roadside bombs that have proved particularly deadly to American soldiers are manufactured in
Iran and delivered to Iraq on orders from the "highest levels" of the Iranian government, a senior intelligence officer said Sunday.

The officer, briefing reporters on condition he not be further identified, said that between June 2004 and last week, more than 170 Americans had been killed by the bombs, which the military calls "explosively formed projectiles."

Those weapons are capable of destroying an Abrams tank.

The officer said American intelligence analysts believe the EFPs are manufactured in Iran and smuggled into Iraq on orders from the top of the Iranian government. He did not elaborate.

As we noted here,

"We are repositioning our forces to focus on border areas and deal with reports of smuggling of weapons and improvised explosive devices from across the border," British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge told Reuters.

"We are going to do what the Long Range Desert Group did in North Africa. We will live in the desert. We will be mobile and able to strike when we want. We will have surprise on our side," he said.

The Brits put in two months of effort investigating the Likudnik theory fantasy of Iranian gun smuggling. WaPo reported in October:

ON THE IRAQ-IRAN BORDER -- Since late August, British commandos in the deserts of far southeastern Iraq have been testing one of the most serious charges leveled by the United States against Iran: that Iran is secretly supplying weapons, parts, funding and training for attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

…

"I have not myself seen any evidence -- and I don't think any evidence exists -- of government-supported or instigated" armed support on Iran's part in Iraq, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said in an interview in Baghdad in late August.