Documents confirm Iran interference in Iraq, plot to divide

By: Ismail Zabeeh

HOLY CITY OF NAJAF, Iraq: In such a time when Iraqi interim President Ghazi Al-Yawar and his deputy Ibrahim Al-Jafari have urged US-led coalition forces to quit the holy city of Najaf and let Iraqi forces stay there against Mehdi militia, diplomatic sources disclosed that Iranian documents confirming Tehran’s interference in Iraqi affairs have been found from the holy city of Karbala.

Washington on Wednesday warned Tehran that it is not in her interest to involve in that which leads to the instability of Iraq.

Meanwhile, an Emirates diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told a Kuwaiti newspaper AS-Siyasah on Wednesday that the government of the Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi sent during the past four days envoys to a number of Arab and Gulf countries including Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia, carrying to their officials details of an Iranian plan for declaration of a Shiite country in south of Iraq under the name of “the region of the separatist south”, based on the recognitions of Iranian representatives in Iraq among them is the Iranian consul in Karbala, in whose consulate headquarters and residence documents were confiscated, and he does not refute this plan. Along with the documents, surveillance equipments as well as large quantity of weapons and explosives were also confiscated.

The diplomat accused the religious regime in Tehran of repetition of disinterment of former Shah’s plans that he had drawn with Israel in sixties and beginning of seventies for the division of Iraq and establishment of a Shiite country in its south.

In another development, the provincial governor for the central Iraqi city of Najaf vowed on Wednesday that US troops fighting radical militiamen would not approach Imam Ali (p) mausoleum, one of holiest shrines.

“US forces will not enter the old city,” Adnan Az-Zorfi told AFP. “They must stop in Midan Square,” on the edge of the district.

“If we decide to go into the old city, this will be the job of Iraqi police and soldiers.”

A senior US commander had said on Monday that Zorfi had given the marines permission to enter the Imam Ali (p) mausoleum in fight against militiamen loyal to Moqtada Sadr.

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