US detains 16 Iraqis with suspected Iran links

BAGHDAD, May 4 (Reuters) US forces detained 16 suspected Iraqi insurgents with links to Iran during a raid in a Shi'ite stronghold in Baghdad today, the US military said.

A weapons cache which included Iranian rockets was also found in a separate operation south of the capital, it said.

Washington has accused Shi'ite Muslim Iran of fomenting sectarian violence in Iraq between Shi'ites and once-dominant Sunni Arabs, but Tehran dismisses the charge.

The military said the raid in Baghdad's Sadr City targeted suspected members of a cell known for facilitating the transport of sophisticated bombs, known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran.

They were also suspected of moving militants from Iraq to Iran for training, it said.

''Intelligence reports also indicate the secret cell has ties to a kidnapping network that conducts attacks within Iraq as well as interactions with rogue elements throughout Iraq and into Iran,'' a US military statement said.

US soldiers also found a weapons cache which included seven Iranian rockets and an Iranian mortar near Mahmudiya, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad. Discoveries of Iranian weapons in Shi'ite southern Iraq are fairly common.

The Washington Post newspaper reported today that attacks using deadly, armour-piercing EFPs had risen to an all-time high of 65 in April, according to Lieutenant-General Ray Odierno, commander of day-to-day operations in Iraq.

Before April, the highest number of EFP attacks was December 2006 with 62, the paper said. Roadside bomb attacks account for about 70 per cent of US casualties in Iraq, the Post said quoting military statistics.

NETWORK LEADER The Post quoted Odierno as saying the ''overwhelming majority'' of the EFP attacks were in predominantly Shi'ite eastern Baghdad. It said US officials believe the bombs are made in Iran and were used almost exclusively by Shi'ite fighters against US military targets.

Iraqi diplomats are pressing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to meet her Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, on the sidelines of a major conference on Iraq today that brings together neighbours and industrialised powers in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh resort.

US forces in Iraq detained five Iranians in a raid in January and said they were linked to Iranian Revolutionary Guard networks that provided weapons to insurgents. Iran said the five were diplomats and has demanded their release.

Iraq has received promises of cooperation on border security over the past three years but insurgents are still able to smuggle fighters and weapons into the country.

Fighting between Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs has pushed Iraq to the brink of sectarian civil war. U.S. and Iraqi forces launched in February a security crackdown in Baghdad seen as a last-ditch effort to avert all-out war.

REUTERS KK VV1528