US 'has strong evidence of Iran's involvement'

Seville, Spain: Serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide 'pretty good' evidence that Iran is providing either arms or technology for militants there, a top US official asserted yesterday.

Offering some of the first public details of evidence the military has collected, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said, "I think there's some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found," that point to Iran.

At the same time, however, he said he was somewhat surprised that recent raids by coalition and Iraqi forces in Iraq swept up some Iranians.

Improvised devices

Just last week, Gates said that US military officers in Baghdad were planning to brief reporters on what is known about Iranian involvement in Iraq but that he and other senior administration officials had intervened to delay the briefing in order to assure that the information provided was accurate.

Speaking to reporters at a defence ministers' conference here, Gates said yesterday, "I don't think there was surprise that the Iranians were actually involved; I think there was surprise we actually picked up some." He and other US officials have said for some time that Iranians, and possibly the government of Iran, have been providing weapons technology, and possibly some explosives to Iraqi insurgents.

The improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have been a leading killer of US forces in Iraq, where more than 3,000 servicemen and women have died in the nearly four-year-old war.

Gates, who is attending his first Nato defence ministers meeting, said Iran is "very much involved in providing either the technology or the weapons themselves for these explosively formed projectiles. Now they don't represent a big percentage of the IED attacks, but they're extremely lethal." Gates said the raids, combined with the movement of an additional US aircraft carrier into the Gulf, have created a stir, but said the Bush administration has no intention of attacking Iran.

The defence secretary has been getting a lukewarm response here to his plea for allies to send more troops.