'Hizbullah instructors trained Shi'ite militiamen in Iraq'

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Hizbullah instructors trained Shi'ite militiamen at remote camps in southern Iraq until three months ago when they slipped across the border to Iran - presumably to continue instruction on Iranian soil, according to two Shi'ite lawmakers and a top army officer. The three Iraqis claimed Tuesday that the Lebanese Shi'ites were also involved in planning some of the most brazen attacks against US-led forces, including the January 2007 raid on a provincial government compound in Karbala in which five Americans died. The allegations, made in separate interviews with The Associated Press, point not only to an Iranian hand in the Iraq war, but also to Hizbullah's willingness to expand beyond its Lebanese base and assume a broader role in the struggle against US influence in the Middle East. All this suggests that Shi'ite-dominated Iran is waging a proxy war against the United States to secure a dominant role in majority-Shi'ite Iraq, which has supplanted Lebanon as Teheran's top priority in the Middle East.