The Elusive Quds Force

The Iranian Special Ops unit accused of meddling in Iraq has a fierce history and powerful friends.

By Christopher Dickey and John Barry
Newsweek
Feb. 26, 2007 Issue
MSNBC

The Iranian Special Operations unit called the Quds Force...its specialty is different: striking fear in the hearts of generals.

Over the past 25 years, the Quds Force has proved ferociously effective at organizing, training and equipping guerrillas to confront the world's most vaunted armies. Quds played a vital role in creating Hizbullah to fight the Israelis in Lebanon. It supported the legendary Ahmed Shah Massoud against the Russians and his Taliban rivals in Afghanistan. Quds helped the Bosnians hold back the Serbian war machine. And now—it's in Iraq.

...the unit appears to be as close to America's Shiite and Kurdish allies...The relationship between the Quds Force and figures like Iraqi President Jalal Talabani or Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (both of whom have been received in the White House recently) goes back two decades to the days when only Tehran was aiding Saddam Hussein's enemies.

"Do the Americans think they would stop working with us because Americans told them so?" says an Iranian intelligence official who is not authorized to speak on the record.

Quds operatives captured recently were working directly under the protection, respectively, of Talabani and Hakim.

Because of the bad intelligence that the Bush administration used to pave the way to war with Iraq in 2003, skeptics worry it may be using similar tactics to provoke a fight with Iran.

But when it comes to the Quds Force, the American military's concerns are much more down to earth.

The weapons known as "explosively formed penetrators" or EFPs, which Quds allegedly helped design and supply to some Shiite factions in Iraq, send a molten slug at phenomenal speed through heavy armor.

Each one costs perhaps $50, but is capable of crippling an Abrams tank that costs more than $4 million, and they are increasingly common.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of the year, U.S. helicopters have been shot out of the sky with unprecedented frequency. Although none of the five confirmed shootdowns have been linked to the Quds Force, or to Iran, U.S. commanders are worried about their troops' ability to move on the ground and in the air. So they're looking for any way to relieve the pressure...