Complications

Remember that raid at Karbala back in January that US military officials said had been orchestrated by Iran because it went off so smoothly? This was the one in which one US soldier had been killed and four kidnapped, later found dead. As a further refresher, this attack came just days after US forces stormed a consulate in Irbil and arrested five Iranians, said to have been spies or agents of the Iranian Quds Force.

Well, an internal Army investigation has somewhat revised this hasty claim. Things may be far more complicated than first stated.

An internal Army investigation into the attack reviewed by TIME, in addition to interviews with U.S. and Iraqi witnesses, suggest that the abduction and murders were carried out with the knowledge and complicity of Iraqi Shi'ite police who only hours earlier had been working alongside U.S. soldiers--and may have involved local officials loyal to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

[via Iraqslogger]