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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Shaalan sez Iran seeking coup in Iraq, backing Zarqawi |
| 2005-01-01 |
| Iraq's Defence Minister, Hazem Shaalan, accused Iran today of attempting to "create a Safavian-style Shiite Crescent stretching from Iran all the way to Syria and Lebanon, engulfing Iraq and bringing about corruption in the country". In comments made to the Jordanian daily, Al-Qadr (Tomorrow), the defence chief also promised to release in the next two days footage of "taped-confessions from agents who, acting on foreign orders, were disrupting Iraq's security". Mirroring previous comments Shaalan also called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda's strongman in Iraq and Iraq's most wanted man, an "Iranian puppet, whose goal is to destabilise security and welfare in Iraq". He sharply criticised Iran for "its efforts at destabilising Iraq" and said that "its objectives were known to everybody". The purpose of the January 6th conference in Amman, on Iraq's security, is "to put pressure on Iran and Syria to stop supporting insurgents" who are entering the country through their borders, Shaalan said. Over the past year, a string of Iraqi officials, including Iraq's interim-Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, and the interim-Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar, have accused Iran of meddling in Iraq. In a December 7 interview with the Washington Post, Yawar accused Iran of pouring "huge amounts of money" into fundamentalist Shiite parties hoping to create an Iraqi Islamic Republic. Shaalan's comments on a Iranian-style Shiite Crescent dominating Iraq echoed comments in December by the Jordanian King Abdullah, who said a new "crescent" of dominant Shiite movements or governments stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon could emerge if pro-Iran parties dominated the new Iraqi government. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 It would appear that Hazem Shaalan is attempting to make a point. He appears to say that Iran and Syria are working together to overtake the ME region. To any clear thinking person, this is obviously the fault of President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. If it hadn't been for their invasion of Iraq, the Syrians and Iranians would still be planting flowers, blowing kisses, raising cute little puppies, and serving on the UN Commission for Human Rights. |
| Posted by: Jacques Chirac 2005-01-01 10:22:39 PM |