Musa Ali Daqduq, the senior Hezbollah commander who was tasked by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to establish Shia terror groups into a Hezbollah-like entity, was transferred to Iraqi custody today, White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Reuters. Daqduq was the last prisoner in Iraq who was in US custody. Vietor told Reuters that Iraq assured the US that it would prosecute Daqduq.
US officials fear that the Iraqi government will be pressured by Iran and Shia political parties to release Daqduq.
The US Department of Justice had planned to prosecute Daqduq in a US court, but Republican Senators opposed the transfer of the terrorist to US soil for prosecution. Some wanted Daqduq to be tried by a military court at Guantanamo Bay.
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| Daqduq's fake documents. Click to view. |
Background on Musa Ali Daqduq
Daqduq is perhaps the most dangerous of the Shia terror commanders captured by US forces in Iraq since 2003. He has a pedigree with Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran's proxy militia and terror group that is based in Lebanon. At the time of his capture in March 2007, he was a 24-year veteran of Hezbollah. He has commanded both a Hezbollah special operations unit and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's security detail.
In 2005, Hezbollah's leadership directed Daqduq to travel to Iran and partner with Qods Force, Iran's elite special operations group tasked with spreading the Iranian theocracy to neighboring countries, to train Iraqi Shia terror groups, the US military said in a briefing in July 2007 after Daqduq's capture. The US seized documents that outlined Daqduq's role in supporting the Shia terror groups, which are collectively called the Special Groups by the US military. The Special Groups include the Mahdi Army, the League of the Righteous (Asaib al Haq, a Mahdi Army faction), and the Hezbollah Brigades.
In May 2006, Daqduq traveled with Yussef Hashim, the chief of Lebanese Hezbollah's operations in Iraq, to Tehran to meet with the commander and the deputy commander of the Iranian Qods Force Special External Operations branch. Daqduq made four trips into Iraq in 2006, where he personally observed Special Groups operations.
Upon his return to Iran, Daqduq was tasked to organize the Special Groups "in ways that mirrored how Hezbollah was organized in Lebanon," Brigadier General Keven Bergner said in the July 2007 briefing. Daqduq began to train Iraqis inside Iran to carry out terror attacks in their home country. Groups of 20 to 60 recruits were trained in the use of Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs), mortars, rockets, and sniper rifles, and instructed on how to conduct intelligence and kidnapping operations.
"These Special Groups are militia extremists, funded, trained and armed by external sources, specifically by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Qods Force operatives," said Bergner. "In addition to training, the Qods force also supplies the Special Groups with weapons and funding of 750,000 to three million U.S. dollars a month. Without this support, these Special Groups would be hard pressed to conduct their operations in Iraq."
Daqduq was captured in March 2007 along with two brothers, Qais and Laith Qazali. Qais was the leader of the Asaib al Haq, or the League of the Righteous, which is considered the most dangerous of the Shia terror groups, while Laith was a commander in the group. Qais was responsible for the January 2007 attack on the Karbala Joint Provincial Coordination Center. Five US soldiers were captured during the operation and were executed by Qazali's men as Iraqi police and troops closed in on the snatch team.
Despite the roles played by Qais and his brother Laith in killing US troops and working with Iran's Qods Force, the US military released the two brothers and hundreds of their followers to the Iraqi government between July and December of 2009. The Shia terrorists were freed in exchange for a British hostage and the bodies of four other Brits who had been executed by the League of the Righteous while in custody.
The US military officially denied that the release of Qais and Laith was part of a hostage exchange, and instead insisted it was part of "reconciliation." But US military and intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal privately said that the brothers had indeed been freed as part of a hostage exchange.
The League of the Righteous returned to terror activities shortly after the hostage exchange. In January of 2010, less than a month after Qais was finally freed, the terror group kidnapped Issa T. Salomi, a US civilian contractor, in Baghdad.