American raid and arrests set scene for capture of marines - Independent Online Edition > Middle East

American raid and arrests set scene for capture of marines - Independent Online Edition > Middle East: "American raid and arrests set scene for capture of marines
By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil
Published: 26 March 2007

At 3am on 11 January US military forces raided the Iranian liaison office in the Kurdish capital Arbil and detained five Iranian officials who are still prisoners.

The attack marked a significant escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran.

Britain is inevitably involved in this as America's only important foreign ally in Iraq. In fact the US raid could have had even more significant consequences if the Americans had captured the Iranian official they were targeting. Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of the Kurdish president Massoud Barzani, told The Independent that 'they were after Mohammed Jafari, the deputy chairman of Iran's National Security Council.'

It is a measure of the difficulty America has in getting its close allies in Iraq, notably the Kurds, to join it in confronting Iran that Mr Jafari was in Arbil as part of an Iranian delegation. He had just visited Mr Barzani in his mountain-top headquarters at Salahudin and earlier he met with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in Dokan in eastern Kurdistan."