General blames Iran for fatal Baghdad rocket attack

By Rich Bowden Sep 13, 2007, 13:04 GMT

US military spokesman Major-General Kevin Bergner speaks during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, 13 September 2007. Bergner gave an update on the security operations in Iraq. EPA/MOHAMMED JALIL - POOL

Baghdad, Iraq, (M&C) - A U.S. general has blamed Iran for supplying the rocket which killed one and injured eleven in an attack on the headquarters of the American military in Iraq on Tuesday. Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said the rocket was a 240 mm, which the Iranian government had been known to supply to extreme Shiite elements in Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Bergner said the rocket was launched from the Rasheed district, west of Baghdad, which he claimed was a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

He said the type of rocket had been "...received from Iranian sources in the past and used against coalition forces.''

''The Iranian... rocket is the only 240-millimeter rocket found or fired in Iraq to date, and Jaish al-Mahdi [Mahdi army] is the only group known to fire that rocket,'' he said to reporters.

Such attacks on the Camp Victory U.S. military headquarters are rare and not usually carried out with such sophisticated weaponry. Speaking in Washington Gen. Petraeus said the U.S. had ''very, very clear'' evidence that Iran was behind such attacks.

''It certainly has contributed to a sophistication of attacks that would by no means be possible without Iranian support,'' Petraeus said at a news conference Wednesday. ''Rockets -- very particularly 240-millimeter ... there's no question where they have come from.''

However Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected the claim of Iranian involvement saying his country had no reason to interfere in Iraq.