Deadly Iraq bomb made in Iran: US

Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks on Americans in Iraq is both politically and diplomatically volatile. The assessment was described in interviews over the past several weeks with US officials, including some whose agencies have previously been skeptical about the significance of Iran8217;s role in Iraq. Administration officials said they recognised that intelligence failures related to pre-war US claims about Iraq8217;s weapons arsenal could make critics skeptical about the US claims.

The Bush administration is expected to make public this weekend some of what intelligence agencies regard as an increasing body of evidence pointing to an Iranian link, including information gleaned from Iranians and Iraqis captured in recent US raids on an Iranian office in Erbil and another site in Baghdad.

Defence Secretary Robert M Gates appeared to allude to this intelligence on Friday when he told reporters in Seville, Spain, that serial numbers and other markings on weapon fragments found in Iraq point to Iran as a source.

Ambassador Javad Zarif, Iran8217;s ambassador to the United Nations, wrote in an Op-Ed article published on Thursday in The New York Times that the Bush administration was 8220;trying to make Iran its scapegoat and fabricating evidence of Iranian activities in Iraq.8221;

8211;MICHAEL R GORDON