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Iran's Supreme Leader Says U.S. Is Obstacle to Iraqi Stability

Posted on: Tuesday, 10 June 2008, 06:00 CDT

By Nazila Fathi

Iran's supreme leader told the visiting prime minister of Iraq on Monday that U.S. forces were the biggest obstacle to the nation's stability.

The statement by the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was the most authoritative public word so far on Tehran's objections to long-term security agreements under negotiation between the Bush administration and the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al- Maliki.

The U.S. military has been operating in Iraq under a United Nations mandate that has been renewed annually. The pact expires on Dec. 31, 2008.

"The most fundamental problem of Iraq is the presence of the foreign forces," Khamenei told Maliki, according to excerpts of their meeting reported by the Iranian Students News Agency. "The Iraqi government, Parliament and all the authorities who have been elected with public vote should take charge."

Iran strongly opposes the U.S. military presence in Iraq, which they consider a major threat on their border.

Yet it was the U.S.-led effort that overthrew their hated enemy, Saddam Hussein, and brought about a coalition government in Baghdad dominated by Shiite political leaders, including Maliki, with strong ties to Iran.

"When a foreign force gradually increases its interference and domination in all the affairs of Iraq, it becomes the most important obstacle in development and prosperity of the Iraqi people," the ayatollah said, without directly referring to the security agreements under discussion in Baghdad.

The Iranian accounts of the meeting between Khamenei and Maliki did not give Maliki's response. But he assured the Iranians on Sunday that his country would not become "a platform for harming the security of Iran and its neighbors."

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have escalated under the Bush administration, which has accused the Iranians of working on a nuclear weapons program and of supplying weapons to anti-American militants in Iraq. Iran has denied the accusations.

U.S. hits Al Qaeda safe house

U.S. soldiers under heavy fire during a raid Monday in northwestern Iraq called in airstrikes and killed five suspected militants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the military said.

Meanwhile, a parked car packed with munitions exploded near a passing Iraqi Army patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing three civilians and an army lieutenant, the police said.

The explosion wounded at least 12 people and damaged several cars and shops in a busy commercial district of Karrada, an officer said on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. military said it also detained 13 suspects and destroyed a "foreign terrorist hideout" in two days of operations targeting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia across the country.

Acting on intelligence gleaned from Iraqi suspects in custody, U.S. soldiers approached a suspected militant safe house Monday in a remote area of northwestern Iraq, the military said. Troops came under heavy fire from a fortified enemy position, it said.

An alleged Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia bomber, meanwhile, was captured with another suspect Monday in Mosul, and five other men were arrested south of the city, the military said. Mosul is believed to be one of the last urban strongholds of the terror group and U.S. and Iraqi forces have fought fierce battles with militants there in recent months.

Source: International Herald Tribune

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