Dylan Thomas is a former Officer in the Intelligence Corps who served on operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Northern Ireland. He is also on the approved parliamentary candidates' list.
British Military Commanders inevitably expect their Intelligence Officers to be able to answer all their priority intelligence requirements (PIRs), in detail, almost immediately! It is often a thankless task; if your agents collect reliable information and your assessments are proved accurate then the Operations officers will take credit for the success of the subsequent mission. However if your sources are unreliable and your assessments are proved to be wrong then you will take full responsibility for the consequences.
One of the key PIRs that commanders always used to ask was; ‘when will we see a migration of the insurgent tactics in Basra move from Iraq into Afghanistan?’
It is largely recognised that during the height of the Iraq conflict, Iran was fighting a proxy war against the US lead coalition via the Shia militia. I know this to be the case from my time spent on operations in Basra but it has also been widely reported in the open source media (here, for example). The Iraqi Police Forces and Shia Militias were infiltrated by individuals being assisted, trained and equipped by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The emergence of the deadly effective armour-piercing Explosively Formed Projectiles (which had such a devastating impact on the coalition’s ability to provide reconstruction and development), were Iranian designed and constructed imports. It was widely assumed by many commanders that Iran, despite its long-term antipathy to the Taleban, would adopt the ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ approach and facilitate the migration of Iranian Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), techniques and procedures to Afghanistan.
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