Iranians were in liaison office

BAGHDAD -- Five Iranians detained by US-led forces were working in a decade-old government liaison office that was in the process of being upgraded to a consulate, the Iraqi foreign minister said yesterday.

But Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, said in Washington that the US-led forces entered the building because information linked it to Iranian elements engaging in violent activities in Iraq.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the raid was one of several conducted against Iranian operatives in Iraq under an order issued by President Bush several months ago, The New York Times reported in today's editions.

The order authorized a broad military crackdown on such operatives, Rice said. The US military has said that many of the roadside bombs, or improvised explosive devices, being used against US troops are made in Iran.

Tehran condemned the latest raid in the Kurdish-controlled city of Erbil and urged Iraq to push for the Iranians' release.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the building where the Iranians were detained Thursday had operated with Iraqi government approval for 10 years.

"We are now in the process of changing these offices to consulates," he said. "It is not a new office. This liaison office has been there for a long time."

The diplomatic tussle came at an unwelcome time for the United States as Bush faces criticism over his new strategy for ending the violence in Iraq. Bush also vowed to isolate Iran and Syria, which the United States has accused of fueling attacks in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told lawmakers in Washington yesterday that additional US and Iraqi troops would begin a new security operation in Baghdad next month, and the US military could begin drawing down troops by the end of the year.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani plans a trip to Syria tomorrow, the highest-level Iraqi visit to the country in more than 24 years. The neighbors restored diplomatic relations in December that were cut in 1982 amid ideological disputes between Damascus and the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, sectarian violence persisted yesterday. Suspected Shi'ite militiamen attacked a Sunni mosque in Baghdad, prompting clashes that wounded two guards.

Attackers later blew up a Shi'ite mosque that was under construction in the northern city of Kirkuk . No casualties were reported.

At least 19 people were reported killed or dead nationwide, including 10 bodies found in Baghdad and an Iraqi journalist who was killed in a shooting in Mosul.