US:President George Bush has confirmed that he has authorised US forces to capture or kill Iranian operatives inside Iraq but said the administration does not intend to widen its military campaign beyond Iraq's borders.
The White House claims that Iranians inside Iraq are helping insurgents and targeting US troops, although the administration has yet to provide any evidence of such activities.
"It makes sense that if somebody is trying to harm our troops, or stop us from achieving our goal, or killing innocent citizens in Iraq, that we will stop them. That's an obligation we all have . . . to protect our folks and achieve our goal," Mr Bush said.
The president insisted, however, that he does not want to expand the conflict beyond Iraq by pursuing or attacking Iran.
"We believe that we can solve our problems with Iran diplomatically, and are working to do that. As a matter of fact, we're making pretty good progress on that front. As you know, the Iranians, for example, think they want to have a nuclear weapon. And we've convinced other nations to join us to send a clear message, through the United Nations, that that's unacceptable behaviour," he said.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that the decision to allow the US military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq was part of a new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence in the Middle East and encourage it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
The paper said that, although US forces are not known to have used lethal force against Iranians to date, dozens of suspected Iranian agents had been detained over the past year for three to four days at a time under a "catch-and-release" policy intended to avoid escalating tensions with Tehran.
The state department said yesterday it intends to produce evidence that Iranians are targeting US troops in Iraq. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Iran was providing improvised explosive devices to insurgents.
As anti-war protesters prepare to demonstrate in Washington today, Mr Bush asked Congress, which is considering resolutions condemning his decision to send more troops to Iraq, to give the plan a chance to succeed.
"One of the things I've found in Congress is that most people recognise that failure would be a disaster for the United States. And in that I'm the decision-maker, I had to come up with a way forward that precluded disaster," he said.
Meanwhile, a bomb killed 15 people and wounded 55 in the second attack in as many months on Baghdad's Friday morning pet market, and a suicide bomber in Mosul killed seven at a Shia mosque, police sources said.
Yesterday's blast in the capital hit the Ghazil market an hour before a weekly 11am vehicle curfew protecting mosques over Friday noon prayers. On Thursday, bomb attacks killed at least 34 people in Baghdad.
- (Additional reporting Reuters)