Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar is reported to have masterminded the two suicide bombings in Niger on Thursday. A spokesman for al-Muwaqqiun bi-Dima (the Signed-in-Blood Battalion) told Mauritanian news agency al-Akhbar that he had “supervised” the attacks, carried out with another group, MUJAO. Al-Akhbar quoted El-Hassen Ould Khalil, a spokesman for the Signed-in-Blood Battalion, as saying:

It was Belmokhtar who himself supervised the operational plans of attacks. They targeted elite French forces who were providing security at the uranium mine that is majority-owned by Areva.

An online statement reportedly signed by Mokhtar Belmokhtar read:

This is the first of our responses to the statement of the president of Niger from his masters in Paris that he eliminated Jihad and the Mujahidin militarily. We attacked France, and Niger because of its co-operation with France, in the war against Sharia. Columns of commandos and those seeking martyrdom are ready and waiting for their targets. We will have more operations, by the strength and power of Allah, and not only that, but we will move the battle to the inside of his country if he doesn’t withdraw his mercenary army.

Earlier, MUJAO also said it had carried out the two attacks. MUJAO spokesman Abu Walid Sahraoui said on Thursday that its militants had targeted “the enemies of Islam in Niger,” according to AFP. However, Khalil’s statement to al-Akhbar said the Signed-in-Blood Battalion had jointly led the attacks with MUJAO. The bombers targeted a military base in Agadez and the French-run uranium mine in Arlit, killing 21 people. On Friday, French special forces and Nigerien troops shot dead two militants holed up inside the base at Agadez. Niger’s Defence Minister, Kardijo Mahamadou, said they had barricaded themselves inside a dormitory along with two soldiers, who were freed during the operation. He told AP:

Our military forces and French special forces attacked, and the hostages, a total of two people, were freed. There were two kidnappers who were hiding in the military dorm, and both were killed. The operation is now finished.

He told RFI that 8 Islamist militants had been killed in the Agadez operation and 2 others in Arlit, adding:

All of them were wearing belts packed with explosives.

French Defence Minister Drian told BFM television that its troops had intervened at the request of Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou and that the situation had stabilised. A French defence ministry official also told AP that the two soldiers held hostage by the militants had been freed in the assault. Earlier, local and military sources told the BBC that they had been killed. Thursday’s bombing at the barracks in Agadez killed 19 people, including 18 soldiers. Four attackers also died while a fifth was overpowered by security forces. The attack on the Somair mine, in the town of Arlit, killed one person and injured 14 others, its operator Areva said. On Thursday, French Pres Hollande vowed to protect French interests and co-operate with Niger in its “fight against terrorism.” Mokhtar Belmokhtar was believed to be behind the deadly attack on an internationally-run Algerian gas plant in January in which 37 hostages and 29 insurgents were killed. He broke away from AQIM last year and formed a new Jihadi group, known variously as the Signed-in-Blood Battalion, the Masked Men Brigade and the Khaled Abu al-Abbas Brigade. Armed forces in Chad said he died in a raid in northern Mali on Mar 2, although there was no confirmation and his death has been declared many times before. MUJAO is a splinter group of AQIM which operates mostly in northern Mali. It says its objective is to spread Jihad to West Africa rather than confine itself to the Sahel and Maghreb regions, the main focus of AQIM.

GUATEMALA CITY – Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo was extradited on Friday to the US to face money-laundering charges, just days after former dictator Efrain Rios Montt’s genocide conviction was overturned. A US grand jury decided in 2009 that Portillo, who was in office from 2000 to 2004, should face charges that he laundered $70m through US banks. A Guatemalan court cleared Portillo of local embezzlement charges in May 2011, but the country’s Supreme Court later endorsed an extradition request by the US that Portillo face money-laundering charges. The US embassy said after Portillo was flown out of the country:

This decision is an important affirmation of the rule of law and due process in Guatemala.

Local authorities picked Portillo up from a military hospital where he was receiving treatment for liver problems. He was transferred to the hospital in April from a jail where he had been held pending a decision on the extradition. Portillo’s lawyers said police put the former president on a plane headed for New York. Attorney Mauricio Berreondo told reporters just before the flight took off:

They showed up at the hospital, said, ‘Get dressed, put on this shirt and we are taking you to the air force base.’

Local media quoted Portillo as saying at the airport:

See you soon, Guatemala. This is a kidnapping.

The US grand jury’s indictment claims Portillo laundered government money through US and European accounts. French prosecutors are also investigating the allegations. Claudia Paz y Paz, Guatemala’s attorney general, said:

The extradition was conducted properly and there were no legal reasons to prevent it. As far as I know, there is no legal action pending. It’s solid.

Portillo took office promising to redistribute wealth in the poverty-plagued Central American country. He fled Guatemala for Mexico shortly after completing his term in 2004. He was extradited from Mexico to Guatemala in 2008 to stand trial on the embezzlement charges. Portillo’s supporters were quick to defend the former president. Carlos Estrada told reporters at the airport:

He hasn’t committed a single crime. We’re going to take the country, it doesn’t matter what it takes, even our lives.

Portillo’s extradition came just days after former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt, 86, had his 80-year genocide conviction annulled by Guatemala’s top court. The May 10 conviction had been hailed as a landmark for justice in the Central American nation where as many as 250,000 people were killed in a 1960-1996 civil war. Rios Montt, whose government was supported by the Reagan administration, had been found guilty of overseeing the killings by the armed forces of at least 1,771 members of the Maya Ixil population during his 1982-83 rule. Critics say the annulment of his conviction highlights the weaknesses of Guatemala’s justice system.

PARIS – France’s foreign minister says Libya is poised to announce new security initiatives in coming weeks, amid recent instability in the North African country and concerns that its vast south could become a haven for al-Qaida-linked terror groups. Laurent Fabius said Friday he spoke with Libya’s prime minister following deadly, simultaneous terror attacks in neighbouring Niger a day earlier, including one on a French-operated uranium mine. Fabius told reporters that France was investigating a “hypothesis” that the attackers used south Libya as a staging ground, “but it could also have been other territories.” French forces this year ousted al-Qaida-linked militants from northern Mali. French authorities believe the militants are trying to regroup and possibly exploit security voids in Libya as it tries to stabilize after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi.

US plans to move MeK out of Iraq hit snag
Paul Richter, LA Times, May 24 2013

WASHINGTON — The State Dept’s decade-long effort to find a new home for the MeK has ground to a near halt only days after the announcement that the exiles had begun moving from Iraq to permanent homes in Europe. Fourteen members of the MeK were flown from the outskirts of Baghdad to Albania on May 15, in what was expected to be the first step in the departure of 3,100 members of the group that has long opposed the government of clerics in Tehran and is also at odds with the government of Iraq. But a State Dept official told Congress on Wednesday that the group’s leadership was not cooperating in the departures, despite the risks to the members’ lives in Iraq. Beth Jones, acting Asst Sec State for Near East Affairs, told a House foreign Affairs subcommittee Wednesday that although US officials have worked hard to persuade the group’s leadership to cooperate in the departures, very few have been allowed to move. She appealed for cooperation. The MeK moved from Iran to Iraq in the early 1980s, and fought with Saddam Hussein against Iran’s Islamist government during the Iran-Iraq war. The current Iraqi government views the group with suspicion, and US and UN officials have been trying to resettle them abroad since 2003. But though the group’s leadership signed an agreement with the UN and Iraq last year to abandon their longtime base, Camp Ashraf, in Diyali province, the leadership seems reluctant to move the group’s members from Iraq. They apparently prefer to remain and continue their effort to overthrow the Iranian government, diplomats say. The group’s leadership, based in Paris, is apparently refusing to allow their tightly-controlled subordinates to cooperate with the UN screening required before resettlement can be arranged. After refusing for years to leave Camp Ashraf, most of the residents began leaving in Sep 2012 for a temporary base. About 100 members remain, determined not to give up their fight and convinced that world powers have betrayed them. US and UN officials believe the group needs to leave Iraq as soon as possible because of hostility from several Iraqi groups and the limited patience of the Iraqi government, which is protecting it. In February, eight group members were killed in a rocket attack on the temporary base, which is called Camp Hurriyah. There has been speculation that the attackers were Shi’ite militants with Iranian backing. MeK leaders say they don’t want the group resettled in small numbers in many countries, but instead moved as a single group to new homes in the US or Europe. Only about 200 people were slated to go to Albania. US and UN officials say that because of lingering concern about the tendencies of a militant group that was on the US list of terrorist groups from 1997 to 2012, no country will take all of them. The NCRI didn’t respond to messages left with its office in Washington.

After the stray bullets from Syria turned into intentional fire, and while Israel is increasing its alert level, Hezbollah’s deputy leader appears to be fanning the flames. Hezbollah Deputy Sec-Gen Sheikh Naim Qassem said Friday in an interview to Lebanese channel al-Mayadin:

Opening the Golan front is a serious matter on the part of the Syrian president, and what is left is the performance on the practical level. Syria has its own abilities, but if needed we are willing to help. Syria is the one which must open the Golan front. It does not need us in the picture because it has its own abilities. And it is none of our business whether this will serve as a provocation against Israel or not. If Israel is convinced that it needs a war and achievement, it will make that decision. We have the power to deal with any foolish act on Israel’s part.

Earlier Friday, the US expressed “deep concern” about the situation in Lebanon, saying:

Hezbollah leaders’ decision to escalate the group’s role in the fighting in Syria violates and undermines Lebanon’s dissociation policy and risks dragging Lebanon into a foreign conflict.

Obama harshly criticized Hezbollah’s activity in his speech on Thursday. Several days ago, Obama spoke to Lebanese Pres Suleiman and encouraged him to maintain Lebanon’s independence, promising US aid. On Friday, Suleiman called on Hezbollah to be cautious in its massive involvement in the fighting alongside Syrian govt forces in Damascus, saying:

Resistance is important, but Hezbollah must not get bogged down in Syria.

Obama has lifted a moratorium on the transfer of Yemeni prisoners held at Gitmo as part of a renewed push to close the detention camp. Nearly 800 detainees have passed through the centre since it was set up under the Bush administration in 2002 to hold “enemy combatants” from the war in Afghanistan, and 166 are still being held there. More than half of these inmates, 89 men, come from Yemen. They were largely picked up around in Afghanistan or border areas 11 years ago on suspicion of involvement with al-Qaeda. But of the 86 men in Gitmo who have been cleared for transfer or release, 56 are Yemeni. They are no longer considered enemy combatants or a threat to US security. Many of other nationalities including Europeans, Saudi Arabians and Afghans have been moved on due to agreements with their home countries. But the Yemenis have been going nowhere. Martha Rayner, Clinical Associate Professor of Law at Fordham University in New York, who has represented some of Gitmo’s Yemeni inmates, said:

The Europeans went home first, as did others whose home countries did quite a bit of advocacy on their behalf. The Yemenis had the misfortune of coming from a country that had had a dictator for many years, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and that didn’t do enough to advocate for its nationals. So the Yemenis languished, even though many were approved for release by the Bush administration.

In Jan 2009, Obama ordered the closure of Gitmo within a year. But on Xmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abd’ul-Mutallab, a Nigerian trained in Yemen, pulled his underwear stunt on a Detroit-bound jet. In Jan 2010, Obama issued a moratorium against the release of any Yemeni detainees. Combined with restrictions imposed by Congress, it brought releases and transfers to a virtual halt. Rayner said:

I think it was a practical response. It was a year since Obama had come into power and his critics were already galvanising themselves to challenge him on the issue of Gitmo and connecting it to national security.

Matthew Waxman, a former Dept of Defense adviser on detention issues, sees it as a more international issue. He said:

During that time, the view was that violent instability in Yemen made returning detainees too risky. There was little confidence that the Yemeni government would be able to mitigate any continuing threat that the returned Gitmo detainees would pose.

Al-Qaeda gained territory during the Yemen revolution in 2011, taking control of towns predominantly in the Abyan region in the southwest of the country. Yemen’s new President, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, led a US-backed military offensive against them in the summer of 2012, pushing the insurgents out of Abyan. But their presence continued. Their numbers rose from hundreds estimated in 2009-2010 to several thousands believed to be operating in the country in 2013. Suicide bombings and assassinations of military and security personnel became common. Anti-US sentiment has also been fuelled by a popular Shi’a Houthi rebellion and hated US military drone strikes. This instability, combined with a lack of infrastructure and rehabilitation services in Yemen, means that Gitmo’s Yemeni detainees may not be going back just yet. Former prisoner Said Ali al-Shihri, who was returned to Saudi Arabia, went on to become a leading member of AQAP. US officials fear other former inmates, radicalised in Gitmo if not before, will go straight to fight for al-Qaeda once released. Nevertheless, Obama said on Thursday:

I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen so we can review them on a case-by-case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries.

Rayner believes the move is connected to the ongoing hunger strike by around 100 detainees, which has attracted worldwide attention. She said:

I think the hunger strike has made the Obama administration move Gitmo up its priority list.

But Wells Bennett of the Brookings Institution said it was a sign of increased US confidence in the Yemeni government. He said:

It may mean that the administration is beginning to feel more positively about security.

Analysts agree, however, that strict requirements imposed by Congress mean that Gitmo’s Yemeni detainees may not be transferred or released imminently. Much depends on how much energy the Obama administration is willing to expend. Rayner said:

I am hopeful that a few Yemenis will go home, but I think it will be a small number.

These are examples of the sort of ‘al Qaeda in Yemen’ boilerplate I find unconvincing:

3 Al-Qaida Members, 2 Soldiers Dead in Yemen Clash
Ahmed al-Haj, AP, May 24 2013

SANAA – A security official says al-Qaida gunmen attacked a military position in a southern province, touching off fighting that left three militants and two soldiers dead. The official said the Friday attack in the mountainous al-Thalib region in the militant stronghold of al-Bayda province was repulsed, and nearby army positions responded with heavy artillery shelling. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity according to regulations, said the attack was part of an al-Qaida bid to take positions near Radda, the province capital, which the militants briefly occupied last year but were driven out by government forces. Al-Qaida overran much of the south in 2011, taking advantage of the turmoil caused by a popular uprising. The army supported by US military experts pushed them back, but clashes continue.

Yemen’s Main Oil Pipeline Attacked, Pumping Stopped
Energy Tribune, May 24 2013

Attackers blew up Yemen’s main oil export pipeline on Friday, halting the flow of crude, the government and industry sources said. Subversive elements in Serwah in central Maarib province had blown up the pipeline, which leads to the Red Sea, at dawn on Friday, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The Arabian Peninsula state, which relies on crude exports to replenish its reserves and finance up to 70% of budget spending, has suffered frequent bombings of its main oil pipeline since an uprising broke out in 2011.

MI5 asked Woolwich murder suspect Michael Adebolajo if he wanted to work for them about six months before the killing, a childhood friend has said. Abu Nusaybah told BBC Newsnight his friend had rejected the approach from the security service. The BBC could not obtain any confirmation from Whitehall sources. Abu Nusaybah was arrested at the BBC after giving the interview. In his Newsnight interview, Abu Nusaybah said:

He changed after he was imprisoned in Kenya last year. He told me he was physically and sexually abused during an interrogation in prison there. He became withdrawn and less talkative. He wasn’t his bubbly self. He also told me that once he was back in Britain, he was followed up by MI5. They came knocking on his door. He was basically being harassed. His wording was, ‘They are bugging me. They won’t leave me alone.’ He mentioned initially they wanted to ask him if he knew certain individuals. But after him saying that he didn’t know these individuals, what he said was they asked him if he would be interested in working for them. He was explicit in that he refused to work for them but he did confirm he didn’t know the individuals.

Adebolajo and Adebowale had been known to MI5 for eight years, Whitehall sources told the BBC on Thursday.

UNITED NATIONS — Syria said it targeted an Israeli vehicle that crossed a ceasefire line into its territory earlier this week because it was heading toward a village with a large rebel presence. In a letter to the UNSC circulated Friday, Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said his country exercised its right to self-defense and would respond immediately to any other violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Syria accused Israel of violating the UN Charter and the separation of forces agreement that followed the 1973 war when it sent the vehicle into Syrian territory and launched two missiles on Tuesday. He said Syria expects the UNSC “to put an end to Israel’s violations.” Israel said the jeep came under fire during an overnight patrol on its side of the ceasefire line. Syria claimed it destroyed the vehicle, but Israel said the jeep suffered only minor damage and no one was hurt. Israel said it returned fire at the source and scored a direct hit. In his letter, Ja’afari said:

At 1:10 am on May 21, an Israeli vehicle crossed the cease-fire line and proceeded towards the village of Bi’r Ajam, which is located in the liberated area of the Golan within the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. The presence of armed terrorist groups in that village led the Syrian armed forces to target the above-mentioned Israeli vehicle. This episode further demonstrates that Israel is interfering in Syria’s internal affairs through its provision of logistical support for armed terrorist groups in Syria, including those that are active in the area of separation of forces.

HOMS – During a tour of some of the neighborhoods in Homs, Syria’s third largest city after Aleppo and Damascus, with a pre-conflict population of approximately 800,000 (nearly half of whom have fled over the past two years) located maybe about 22 miles NE of the current hot-spot of al-Qusayr, this observer engaged in a few interesting conversations, or more accurately diatribes, with some long-bearded Sunni fundamentalists who claimed they came from Jabhat al-Nusra (aka Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahl ash-Shām, “Front of Defense for the People of Greater Syria”), and were preparing to return to al-Qusayr to fight the deniers of Allah. Whoever controls the strategic crossroads town of al-Qusayr and its environs can block supplies and reinforcements to and from Damascus and locations north and east. Were the rebels to lose control of al-Qusayr, it would mean the cutting-off of supplies from Lebanon, whence most of the local opposition’s weapons flow and fighters have been smuggled over the past 26 months. If the Assad regime forces regain control of the city, Washington believes they will move north and conquer current opposition positions in Homs and Rastan, both areas being dependent on support from Lebanon and al-Qusayr. If government forces can retake the city it will put an end to the Saudi-Qatari plan to set up a Salafi Emirate in the area, which would constitute a threat to the nearly two dozen Lebanese Shi’a villages of the Hermel region. If the Syrian army re-takes al-Qusayr, it would avert a full-scale sectarian war on both sides of the border. I met a few self-proclaimed al-Nusra Front militiaman last week in Homs, one of whom spoke excellent British English, and they had plenty to say about current events in al-Qusayr, to which they planned to return the next day to fight their enemies “by all means that Allah gives us.” One added, when asked if they had confronted Hezbollah:

Of course. But Hezbollah can’t defeat us. Eventually they will withdraw from Syria, on orders from Tehran. But first, insha’Allah, we will bleed Hezbollah with thousands of cut throats.

Nearby kids cheered and gave V for victory signs, smiles, giggles and cackling all around. Such Jihadi rants are music to more than a few US congressional and White House ears these days, as once more in this region, a major, carefully-calibrated USraeli regime-change project appears to be falling short. This week, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted overwhelmingly to arm elements of the Syrian opposition, with a recommendation to “provide defense articles, defense services, and military training” directly to the opposition throughout Syria, who naturally will “have been properly and fully vetted and share common values and interests with the US.” History teaches that the vetting part would not happen if the scheme is implemented, despite only a few in Congress objecting. Perhaps lacking some of his father Ron Paul’s insights into US hegemonic plans for this region, Rand Paul did object to the measure and he fumed at his colleagues:

This is an important moment. You will be funding today the allies of al-Qaeda. It’s an irony you cannot overcome.

According to the Hill Rag weekly, veteran war-hawks John McCain and Lindsay Graham flashed a knowing smile but gave no rebuttal, perhaps realizing that Paul is a bit untutored on the reality of current Obama Administration policy in Syria generally, and for al-Qusayr in particular. Contrary to the shock and anger expressed by Paul, US policy in Syria de facto is to assist allies of al-Qaeda, including the US “Terrorist-listed” Nusra Front, as well as anti-Iran, anti-Shi’a and anti-Hezbollah groups gathering near al-Qusayr with such multifaruous names as the Ahl al-Athr Brigade, Ahrar al-Sham, the Basha’ir al-Nasr Brigades, the Commandos Brigades, the Fajr al-Islam Brigades, the Independent Farouq Brigades, the Khalid bin al-Walid Brigade, Liwa al-Haq, Liwa al-Sadiq, the al-Nour Brigade, the al-Qusayr Brigade, Suqur al-Fatah, the al-Wadi Brigades, the al-Walid Brigades and the 77th Brigade, along with scores of others all currently operating in, near, or rushing to al-Qusayr. Their victory, according to US Senate sources, would be a severe blow and challenge to Iran’s influence in the region and Iran’s leadership of the regional and global resistance to the Zionist occupiers of Palestine in favor of the full right to return of every ethnically-cleansed Palestinian refugee.

While Congress was considering what else to do to help the “rebels” on May 22, the foreign ministers of no fewer than 11 so-called “world powers,” including Turkey and Jordan, met in Amman to condemn with straight faces or even with tongue in cheek the “flagrant intervention” in Syria by Hezbollah and Iranian fighters. They urged their immediate withdrawal from the war-torn country. In a joint statement, the “Friends of Syria” group called “for the immediate withdrawal of Hezbollah and Iranian fighters, and other regime-allied foreign fighters from Syrian territory.” Not one peep, of course, about the Salafi-Jihadi-Takfiri fighters from more than 30 countries now ravaging Syria’s population. The truth of the matter is that the governments represented by their foreign ministers this week in Amman will follow the US lead, which means they will assist, despite some cautionary public words, virtually any ally of al-Qaeda whose fighting in Syria may be seen as weakening the Assad government and its supporters in Iran and Lebanon. According to one long-term Congressional aid to a prominent Democratic Senator from the West Coast, while the Amman gathering described Hezbollah’s armed presence in Syria as “a threat to regional stability,” the White House could not be more pleased that Hezbollah is in al-Qusayr. When pressed via email for elaboration, the Middle East specialist offered the view that the White House agrees with Israel that al-Qusayr may become Hezbollah’s Dien Bein Phu and the Syrian conflict could well turn into Iran’s Vietnam:

Quite a few folks around here think al-Qusayr will remove Hezbollah from the list of current threats to Israel. And the longer they keep themselves bogged down in quicksand over there, the better for Washington and Tel Aviv. Hopefully they will remain in al-Qusayr for a long hot summer and gut their ranks in South Lebanon via battlefield attrition, and Israel can make its move and administer a coup de grace.

The staffer followed up with another email with only one short sentence and a smiley face:

Of course the White House and its concrete wall-solid ally might be wrong!

The dangers for Hezbollah are obvious: that it may be drawn ever deeper into a bottomless pit of conflict in Syria that could leave it severely depleted and prey to a hoped-for death-blow from Israel. Nasrallah and other party officials have dismissed that possibility. The next few weeks may tell.

The WaPo’s Anne Gearan reports today (5/22/13) that Iran is in the thick of the Syria war, according to an anonymous US official:

Iran has sent soldiers to Syria to fight alongside forces loyal to Assad and those of Hezbollah, a senior State Dept official said Tuesday. An unknown number of Iranians are fighting in Syria, the official said, citing accounts from members of the opposition FSA, which is backed by the US. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview a strategy session that Jackass Kerry is to hold Wednesday with key supporters of the Syrian opposition.

The rationale for granting anonymity, a privilege that outlets are supposed to extend only rarely, is curious; it’s not clear why the government would need to say things anonymously in order “to preview a strategy session” about Syria. Even more curious, though, is whether or not the source in question actually said this. Scott Lucas took a look at the briefing that produced the story (5/22/13), and what the State Dept official actually said was this:

It is the most visible effort we have seen of Hezbollah to engage directly in the fighting in Syria as a foreign force. We understand there are also Iranians up there. That is what the FSA commanders are telling us. I think this is an important thing to note, the direct implication of foreigners fighting on Syrian soil now for the regime.

Suggesting that the FSA believes Iranians are in Syria, which is probably true, is not the same thing as saying “Iran has sent soldiers to Syria” to fight on Assad’s behalf. And in answering follow-up questions, the anonymous State Dept official admits:

To be very frank, I don’t have any estimates of numbers, and I don’t know that they are directly involved in the fighting. They could be doing a little of both advising and fighting. The reports that we’re getting are not consistent.

But Gearan’s question at the briefing would strongly suggest that she was pushing a stronger line about Iranian involvement than the anonymous source:

Are we now, based on your earlier comments about Iranian fighters being involved, looking at a proxy war? I mean, you’re talking about arming the rebels on one side, and the Iranians are clearly arming the others and fighting on behalf of the others on the other side. Are we now basically in a war with Iran?

The source doesn’t go as far out on this issue as Gearan’s question was pushing. But it didn’t really matter. As you can see in the pages of the WaPo, an official Iranian role in the fighting was treated almost like a fact, which might be the point of having anonymous briefings like this.