In an interview with American paper USA Today, Gen. Ray Odierno, Commander of Multi-National Force – Iraq, said that the Iranian regime continues its support of militias in Iraq and the deadly neasures which ar going on in Iraq.

Q: Can I talk a little bit about Iran? What’s your sense on what they’re doing now?

Gen Odierno: Let’s take the security arrangement we’re now currently negotiating where they clearly are trying to influence the outcome of that security arrangement. They continue to, in my mind, meddle in internal Iraqi politics. They want to meddle in internal Iraqi decisions. They want to try to have influence. They want to try to control the outcome. They, in my opinion, don’t want Iraq to move forward as a fully sovereign nation. They don’t want them to have a bilateral agreement with a country. They’d rather have them have a UN Security Council resolution. A bilateral agreement is about Iraqi achieving its full sovereignty, having an agreement with another country. So I think they they continue to want to meddle inside of Iraqi business. They continue to still…it’s clear they are still supporting some lethal aspects of what’s going on here in Iraq through training and funding and equipping. It’s clear to me that Iran wants to meddle. And so it’s important that, you know, Iraq understands this and I think they do actually.

Q: And there’ve also been some reports that Iranian hit teams running around. What’s your sense of that?

Gen Odierno: Well, what we’re seeing is a change in tactics by both al-Qaida and the special groups or these special rogue elements that have been trained in Iran. And what you’re seeing is they’re going after…they’re conducting intimidation, assassinations against government officials or the Iraqi Security Forces or the other officials, trying to intimidate. And we’ve seen that because they have been unsuccessful in the other ways they’ve tried to have influence. You know their attacks on the population have backfired, both on al-Qaida and special groups.