The Guardian,
Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources say.
The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the home of US special forces and, two sources said, Israeli military “consultants” had also visited Iraq.
US forces in Iraq's Sunni triangle have already begun to use tactics that echo Israeli operations in the occupied territories, sealing off centres of resistance with razor wire and razing buildings from where US troops have been attacked.
The secret war is about to get much tougher, in the hope of suppressing the Baathist-led insurgency before next year's US presidential elections.
US special forces are also behind the lines inside Syria trying to kill foreign jihadists before they cross the border, and a group focused on the “neutralisation” of guerilla leaders is being set up, sources familiar with the operations said.
“This is basically an assassination program. That is what is being conceptualised here. This is a hunter-killer team,” said a former US intelligence official, who said he feared the tactics and enhanced co-operation with Israel would only inflame a volatile situation in the Middle East.
“We're already being compared to [the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel] Sharon in the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams.”
The Pentagon did not return calls.
An Israeli official said the IDF regularly shared its experience in the West Bank and Gaza with US forces, but would not comment on Iraq.
“When we do activities, the US military attaches in Tel Aviv are interested. I assume it's the same as the British. That's the way allies work. The special forces come to our people and say, do debrief on an operation we have done,” the official said.
“Does it affect Iraq? It's not in our interest or the American interest or in anyone's interest to go into that. It would just fit in with jihadist prejudices.”
Colonel Ralph Peters, a former army intelligence officer and a critic of Pentagon policy in Iraq, said there was nothing wrong with learning lessons wherever possible.
“When we turn to anyone for insights, it doesn't mean we blindly accept it,” he said. “But I think what you're seeing is a new realism. The American tendency is to try to win all the hearts and minds. In Iraq, there are just some hearts and minds you can't win. Within the bounds of human rights, if you do make an example of certain villages it gets the attention of the others, and attacks have gone down in the area.”
The new counter-insurgency unit made up of elite troops being put together in the Pentagon is called Task Force 121, New Yorker magazine reported in Monday's edition.
One of the planners behind the offensive is a highly controversial figure, whose role is likely to inflame Muslim opinion: Lieutenant General William “Jerry” Boykin.
In October, there were calls for his resignation after he told a church congregation in Oregon that the US was at war with Satan, who “wants to destroy us as a Christian army”.
