New York: Iran is engaging in a proxy war with the United States in Iraq, adopting tactics similar to those it has used to back fighters in Lebanon, US ambassador to Iraq Ryan C Crocker has said.

There has been no substantive change in Iranian behaviour in Iraq, despite more than a year of talks between the Bush administration and Iran over how to calm Shiite-Sunni tensions in Iraq, Crocker said in an interview published in the New York Times today.

The paramilitary branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is continuing to direct attacks by Shiite militias against American and Iraqi targets, he told the paper, although he offered no direct evidence.

Asked if the United States and Iran were engaged in a proxy war in Iraq, Crocker said, "I don't think a proxy war is being waged from an American point of view."

But he added, "When you look at what the Iranians are doing and how they are doing it, it could well be that."

While Bush administration officials have long denounced what they have described as Iran's meddling in Iraq, the Times noted that Crocker's language was unusually strong.

It reflected fresh concern about what he described in Congressional testimony this week as Iran's role in supplying militias with training and weapons, including rockets used in recent attacks on the Green Zone, in Baghdad, noted the Times.

The Bush administration is trying to exploit any crack it can find between the largely Shiite, pro-Iranian government of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and Iran's Shiite government, the paper said.
Source : PTI