MESOPOTAMIA NEWS INTEL : Leaked Iranian Intelligence Reports Expose Tehran’s Influence in Iraq / BY THE SOUFAN GROUP
19 Nov 2019 – Details from a trove of secret Iranian intelligence cables were published simultaneously by The Intercept and The New York Times on Monday. An anonymous Iraqi source shared with The Intercept roughly 700 pages of reports and cables written mainly in 2014 and 2015 by officers in Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security who were based in Iraq. The cables record years of effort by the Iranians to cultivate senior Iraqi politicians, some of whom were said to have passed on information and to have committed to helping Iran. The leaked documents describe in detail Iran’s efforts to obtain informants and to persuade Iraqis working with the Americans to switch sides. In encrypted messages, the anonymous source said that he or she wanted to “let the world know what Iran is doing in my country Iraq.”
Many of the files show that as senior American diplomats met behind closed doors with their Iraqi counterparts in Baghdad and Kurdistan, their conversations were routinely reported back to the Iranians. Iranian officials also reportedly cultivated networks of informants who had once worked for the Americans. The cables show how Iran began amassing power in the chaotic aftermath of the 2003 American invasion. They also reveal tensions between Iranian intelligence units as Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, recruited and mobilized Iraqi militias to defend Iranian interests.
Several senior Iraqi officials named in the report based on the intelligence cables denied on Monday that they were close to Iran or that they had given sensitive information to its government. Among them were former prime minister Haider al-Abadi and Lt. Gen. Hatem al-Maksusi, who at the time he was mentioned in the cables was commander of military intelligence in Iraq’s Defense Ministry. The Intercept, New York Times
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The Intercept: The Story Behind the Iran Cables