I was going to post this in the "More Iran" thread, but that seems to have morphed into commentary on Congressional Spending so with apologies, here is a fairly good timeline detailing increasing Iranian agression and involvement towards UK/US forces in Iraq:
(Part 1 - 2003-2006)[/u]
August 2003: (link) First EFP (explosively formed projectile) attack in Iraq.
June 24, 2004: (link) Iranian leader Ali Khamenei says in a TV interview:
We have no need for a nuclear bomb. We have overcome our enemies so far, without the nuclear bomb. The Iranian people have been defeating America for the past 25 years, is it not so? America has been defeated by the Iranian people during the past 25 years. What has it been defeated with? Have we defeated America using a nuclear bomb, or by our determination, will, faith, and awareness? The world of Islam has been mobilized against America for the past 25 years.
January 26, 2005: (link) In an interview on Iranian TV, Hosein Salami, former deputy commander of operations of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps says:
The [Americans] eliminated the Taliban and Saddam. They conducted operations in Yugoslavia. Therefore, we are aware of the Americans’ real power. Our country has unique capacities that no other power in the Middle East or in the Persian Gulf possesses. This is the ability to manage regional crises. This is a fact. If Iran wishes to cause turbulence in the crisis areas around it, and to leave its mark - stability and security in the region will change dramatically.
May 29, 2005: (link) An EFP attack near Amara kills 21-year-old British lance corporal, Alan Brackenbury.
June 2005: (link) A Japanese convoy near Samawa is struck by a roadside bomb which uses a remote control firing device typically provided by Iran or Hezbollah.
July 19, 2005: (link) The United States secretly sends Iran a diplomatic protest through Swiss intermediaries charging that Tehran is supplying lethal roadside explosive devices (EFPs) to *****e extremists in Iraq. “Message from the United States to the Government of Iran” — informed the Iranians of the May 29th attack on Cpl. Brackenbury and notes that the *****e militants who planted the device had longstanding ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran.
August 2005: (link) Iran denies any connection to the EFPs being used in Iraq.
September 2005: (link) British forces arrest Ahmad Jawwad al-Fartusi, the leader of a splinter group of the Mahdi Army that carried out E.F.P. attacks against British forces in southern Iraq. American intelligence concludes that his fighters might have received training and E.F.P. components from Hezbollah.
October 2005: (link) British ambassador to Iraq, William Patey, tells reporters in London that Iran is supplying lethal technology that had been used against British troops. Prime Minister Tony Blair adds, “The particular nature of those devices lead us to either to Iranian elements or to Hezbollah.”
March 7, 2006: (link) Defense Secretary Rumsfeld publicly accuses Iran of sending Revolutionary Guard forces into Iraq, saying “They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq, and we know it, and it is something that they will look back on as having been an error in judgement.”
April 2006: (link) EFP attacks in Iraq rise sharply.
May 6, 2006: (link) A British Lynx helicopter is shot down over Basra, killing five. On 3/4/2007 an investigation into the incident concludes that the chopper was brought down by a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile known as an SA14 Strella, which was manufactured in Iran.(link)
September 7, 2006: (link) A joint border patrol made up of US and Iraqi soldiers is ambushed by a platoon of Iranian soldiers. Rounds exchanged. The US troops retreat and report the incident. The Iraqi troops they were patroling with remain unaccounted for.
(link) Time magazine reports that at least one Iranian soldier, who had been aiming a rocket at US forces, was killed in the incident.
October-December, 2006: (link) Excluding casualty data for the Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, where the explosives have not been found, the devices (EFPs) account for about 30 percent of American and allied deaths this quarter of the year.
November 2, 2006: (link) Cpl. Daniel James –interpreter for Gen David Richards, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan — is charged with “prejudicing the safety of the state” by passing information “calculated to be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy”. It was said he had communicated with a “foreign power” in the incident on Nov 2, believed to be Iran.
November 12, 2006: (link) In a TV interview on Iran’s channel 2, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, General Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps says:
The Americans have many weaknesses. In fact, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they clearly displayed their strengths and weaknesses. We have planned our strategy precisely on the basis of their strengths and weaknesses.
[…]
We don’t see any motivation among the American forces in Iraq. They are very cowardly. There are even scenes from Iraq in which they are seen crying. When their commanders encounter a problem, they burst into tears. We did not see such spectacles in the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war. I can therefore say that our advantage over the foreign forces is moral and human.
November 15, 2006: (link) The Telegraph reports on links between Al-Quaeda and Iran’s Revolutinary Guard:
“From the evidence we have seen, Iran’s links to al-Qa’eda go far deeper than simply supplying them with equipment,” said a senior Western intelligence official. “They are allowing them the use of training facilities so that they can ensure their attacks are as effective as possible.”
November 27, 2006: (link) In an interview on Iranian TV, President Ahmedinejad says:
Today is the day of unity among peoples and of solidarity among governments. We should join hands and help the people of Iraq, and help Palestine, Afghanistan, and Lebanon. Today, by helping one another, we can drive the foreigners out of our region.
December 9, 2006: (link) Iran really wants peace, says Time magazine:
“TIME’s sources, in contrast to U.S. charges that Tehran is fueling instability there…indicate that Iranian officials essentially agree with the Baker-Hamilton conclusion that while Iran gains an advantage from having the U.S. mired in Iraq, its long-term interests are not served by Iraqi chaos and territorial disintegration.”
December 20, 2006: (link) The US announces that it is moving a second carrier group to the Gulf “in a display of military resolve toward Iran.”
December 21, 2006: (link) On a tip, US forces raid the Baghdad compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shia leader, and arrest two senior members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Quds Force: Col. Abu Amad Davari (link) and Brig. Gen. Amir Mohsen Shirazi (link) (other reports call him Moshin Chizari or simply Chizari). Chizari is the #3 commander of the Revolutionary Guard (link). (Note that the only story to give the exact date is this one from ABC)
According to the Washington Post, Chizari has on him (link):
detailed weapons lists, documents pertaining to shipments of weapons into Iraq, organizational charts, telephone records and maps, among other sensitive intelligence information. Officials were particularly concerned by the fact that the Iranians had information about importing modern, specially shaped explosive charges into Iraq, weapons that have been used in roadside bombs to target U.S. military armored vehicles.
Michael Ledeen’s summarized the find this way (link):
He was carrying documents, one of which was in essence a wiring diagram of Iranian operations in Iraq. That wiring diagram included both Shi’ite and Sunni terrorist groups, and was of such magnitude that American officials were flabbergasted.
Ledeen goes on to say that the information had (by Jan 2 when his post was published) reached the President.
Late December 2006: (link) After the President “was given new intelligence on the scale of Iranian operations to foment violence in Iraq” he signed a “clandestine directive” ordering “US forces to launch a military offensive against Iranian officials and Revolutionary Guards…in Iraq”
December 29, 2006: (link) Against the wishes of the US, the two captured Iranians are returned to Iran by al-Maliki’s Iraqi government.
