Shiite lawmakers sceptical as U.S. denies role in abduction of Iranian diplomat

The Karradah neighborhood of Baghdad where the abduction took place

BAGHDAD, Iraq - It was just past sunset when a car carrying an Iranian diplomat was cruising through the streets of a leafy Shiite neighborhood. Suddenly, two cars filled with uniformed men blocked the way, forced him into a vehicle and sped off.

Jalal Sharafi‘s abduction Sunday evening threatens to escalate the tense standoff between Iran and the United States — and could swell into a major diplomatic crisis for Iraq ‘s fragile, Shiite-dominated government.

U.S. authorities deny any role in the disappearance. "We don‘t really know a whole lot about it at this point," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. "We know that the Iraqi government is investigating."

Suspicion also has fallen on a range of possible culprits — Iraqi commandos, rogue elements in the security forces, Sunni insurgents or criminals seeking a big ransom.

Details of the kidnapping remain murky, but one government official said it began when gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms blocked Sharafi‘s car in the Karradah district, forced him into one of their two vehicles and sped away.

Police took the four to a police station. The next day, Iraqis in uniform appeared there, showed government badges and demanded the four suspects — ostensibly to transfer them to another lockup, the official said.

Shiite lawmakers said they believed Sharafi was detained in an intelligence operation carried out by the Iraqi Special Operations Command, an elite unit under the direct supervision of the U.S. military.

But U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said no U.S. or coalition troops were involved in the abduction. "We‘ve checked with our units and it was not an MNF-I (Multi-National Forces — Iraq) unit that participated in that event," he said.

Those denials did little to soothe Iran‘s anger.

Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Iran "strongly condemns this aggressive act, which is in violation of international law" protecting accredited diplomats.

"Iran holds American forces in Iraq responsible for the safety and life of the Iranian diplomat," he told Iran‘s official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Karradah is an unlikely venue for an assault on an Iranian diplomat. The heavily Shiite neighborhood is controlled by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, a major Shiite party with close ties to Iran.

SCIRI was founded in Iran in 1982 by Iraqi Shiite militants who fled Saddam Hussein ‘s Sunni-dominated regime. Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards organized and trained SCIRI‘s armed wing, the Badr Brigade, which fought alongside Iranian soldiers in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Read the rest at the News Tribune

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