[I'm backdating this to keep it at the top of my site for the day. Scroll down for newer posts.
Original timestamp 2007.01.29.02:39]

Qods Force, Karbala and the Language of War
Details Indicate Iran's Qods Force Executed US Soldiers After Karbala Abduction
By Steve Schippert

There are strong indications and surrounding circumstances that point to the January 20 attack on soldiers from an American Civil Affairs Unit in Karbala, Iraq, was an operation planned and carried out by members of the Iranian Qods Force extraterritorial unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Four captured US soldiers were later executed by the attackers. If Iranian Qods Force operators carried out the attack and executions, the US response can be seen as a barometer indicating how the US will deal with the state sponsor of terrorism on the Iraqi battlefields and elsewhere in the world. ...

If confirmed to be a Qods Force operation, this is an act of war by the State of Iran upon the United States of America that can scarcely be swept away as have similar acts, including the 1983 bombing of the United States Embassy and the Marine Barracks in Beirut, the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, or even the supply of explosives, weapons, training and cash to various enemy combatants in Iraq since 2003. ...

Read the whole thing, people. Study it. Mr President, are you paying attention? It's time, sir.

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I don't like the sound of this, either:

Iranian Reveals Plan to Expand Role in Iraq 

BAGHDAD, Jan. 28 — Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital — just as the Bush administration has been warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs.

Iran’s plan, as outlined by the ambassador, carries the potential to bring Iran into further conflict here with the United States, which has detained a number of Iranian operatives in recent weeks and says it has proof of Iranian complicity in attacks on American and Iraqi forces.

The ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, said Iran was prepared to offer Iraq government forces training, equipment and advisers for what he called “the security fight.” ...

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I Smell Iran 
Jules Crittenden

Najaf attack was a plot to kill al-Sistani, CNN reports.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other top Shiite religious figures were the apparent targets of an insurgent plot thwarted in an intense battle near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf, Iraqi officials said.

… The possible death of al-Sistani “would really plunge Iraq and the possibly the rest of the region into a bloodbath,” said Vali Nasr, author of “The Shia Revival,” a recent book on the rise of the sect.

Exactly who and why remain puzzling questions, given that weird report about Mahdi-happy zealots that included both Sunni and Shia.  From a cynical, murderous realpolitikische (Iranian) point of view, it creates a bloodbath in which the Sunnis and the U.S. lose, and the Iranians emerge triumphant. ...

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Yesterday's Firefight Was Against Cult
John Hinderaker

An interesting update on yesterday's firefight near Najaf, in which 200 or more gunmen were reportedly killed, from Reuters: the attack was against members of a cult who were believed to be plotting to kill religious leaders in connection with the pilgrimage to Najaf:

The leader of an Iraqi cult who claimed to be the Mahdi, a messiah-like figure in Islam, was killed in a battle on Sunday near Najaf with hundreds of his followers, Iraq's national security minister said on Monday.

[I]raqi troops, backed by U.S. forces, confronted the group after learning it was planning an attack on the Shi'ite clerical establishment in Najaf on Monday.

Authorities have been on alert for days as hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite Muslims massed in the area to commemorate Ashura, the highpoint of their religious calendar, amid fears of attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents linked to al Qaeda.

But Sunday's battle involved a group of a different sort, a cult which Iraqi officials said included both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims as well as foreigners. ...

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Iran's Role in Iraq Will Be Exposed
Eli Lake (Hat tip: Allahpundit)

WASHINGTON — New evidence of Iran's role in Iraq will be made in Baghdad by the chief spokesman for the multinational forces in Iraq, Major General William Caldwell. The Directorate of National Intelligence worked over the weekend to clear new intelligence and information that sources inside the intelligence community said would implicate Iran in deliberately sending particularly lethal improvised explosives to terrorists to kill coalition soldiers.

The intelligence community is currently debating whether to make the new evidence, which it plans to declassify, available on the Internet.

The plan to present the evidence will coincide with a presentation this week by Ambassador Khalilzad to the press detailing the charges against Iranian operatives affiliated with the country's Quds Force arrested in the last six weeks in three raids.

The decision to go public with new evidence on Iran's role in fomenting Iraq's civil war and in working with terrorists killing American soldiers marks a change in strategy for the Bush administration, which has until now provided scant evidence to the public about Iran's role in the Iraq conflict. Since the president unveiled his new war strategy on January 10, leading Democrats have challenged claims of Iran's role and intentions in the Iraq war. ...

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Ed Morrissey has more on the Najaf battle here.