US has’ intelligence’ of Iran helping insurgents in Iraq

Serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide “pretty good” evidence that Iran is providing either weapons or technology for militants there, US defence secretary Robert Gates said today.

Offering some of the first public details of evidence collected by the US military, Gates said: “I think there’s some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found,” that point to Iran.

At the same time, however, he said he was somewhat surprised that recent raids by coalition and Iraqi forces in Iraq had swept up some Iranians.