Iran-linked groups focus of Baghdad kidnapping probe: U.S. sources

U.S. intelligence agencies investigating the kidnapping of three Americans in Baghdad, Iraq last week are focusing their probe on three groups closely affiliated with the Iranian regime, U.S. government sources said on Thursday.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Badr Organization are the principle focus of the investigation into the armed kidnapping of the three Americans in the Dora neighborhood, south of Baghdad, the sources said.

The three men are employed by a still-unidentified small company doing work for General Dynamics under a larger contract with the U.S. Army.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Badr Organization are Shi’ite militia groups that are part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Front, a group closely tied to Iran, according to the Counter Terrorism Project, a New York-based advocacy group.

The Badr Organisation in Iraq was created in Iran in 1982 by the Iranian regime's Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC).

A report by Reuters in December 2015was revealed that reports by U.S. government investigations which have never been made public says Badr Organization has been running secret prisons and is involved in torture and assassinations.

The crimes carried out by the Badr Organization, headed by Hadi al-Ameri (al-Amiri), have been consistently overlooked by the United States, the report by Reuters said.

Whenever Ameri visits Tehran, he meets Ali Khamenei, the Iranian regime's Supreme Leader. He expresses full obedience to Khamenei as his subservient.

“The decade-old U.S. investigation of the secret prison implicates officials and political groups in a wave of sectarian killings that helped ignite a civil war. It also draws worrying parallels to the U.S. government’s muted response today to alleged abuses committed in the name of fighting Islamic State,” Reuters investigative report said.

Personnel working in “Special Investigations Directorate,” an unofficial Interior Ministry organization, “illegally detained, tortured and murdered Iraqi citizens,” the U.S. reports stated.