The former No. 2 US commander in Iraq said on Tuesday that Iran is still training, funding and arming Shiite extremists in Iraq, with the aim of keeping a weak government in Baghdad.
"I think we have to keep the pressure on them," said Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, who until recently was second in command in Iraq in charge of day-to-day military operations.
"What they ought to stop doing is training surrogates, funding surrogates and supplying weapons to them, which they are still doing today," he told reporters.
Odierno's comments one day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq during the first visit ever to Iraq by an Iranian president.
US lawmakers denounced the Iranian's president's visit.
However, the commander of US forces in the Middle East, Admiral William Fallon, said the visit was an opportunity for Iraqi leaders to press Ahmadinejad to stop the arms flow.
"This is a venue in which we might be able to move some kind of a dialogue forward to get them to be more cooperative and helpful in this area," Fallon said.
"The levels of lethal assistance into Iraq [are] difficult for us to pinpoint but there certainly has been a diminution of activity in the last several months, particularly with regard to these IEDs, explosively formed penetrators," he said.
"How much of this is directly the result of decisions made in Tehran, how much is due to our own people and their good work in the field, I don't know," he said.
"But this kind of trend is something we want to see accelerated and moved on," he said.
Odierno acknowledged that Iraq needed good relations with Iran, but questioned whether Iran is being "helpful," citing its continued support for Shiite extremists.
He alluded to a boast on Monday by Ahmadinejad that he was able to visit Iraq openly, unlike other foreign leaders who made unannounced visits that lasted just a few hours.
"My comment is I'm not surprised. Because over the last 12 months whenever a visitor would come from the United States, we needed to foil a rocket attack, Odierno said.
"Guess what? That is because it was being done by an Iranian surrogate," he said.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
RSS