FORT TARIK (Iraq), May 7: A senior US general flew to Iraq’s vast desert frontier with Iran on Sunday and vowed to stop what he said was the smuggling of bomb materials from Iran.

Landing by helicopter under the gun sights of Iranian border guards perched on a watchtower across the frontier, Lieut-Gen Peter Chiarelli, the No2 US general in Iraq, said US and Iraqi forces securing the border will do “all we can” to stop roadside bombs.

Washington and London say there is evidence components of sophisticated improvised explosive devices behind attacks on British forces in southern Iraq were produced in Iran, a charge denied by Tehran.

“We will do all we can to stop IEDs from coming into Iraq,” Lt-Gen Chiarelli told reporters in the border post.

“We are very concerned about this border because of IEDs. The capabilities of the IEDs we are facing today are much more than what I saw in March 2004. We feel an urgency to stop components of IEDs that are coming from the borders.”

The US military has built and equipped 258 border forts around Iraq’s porous borders with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Trained by U.S. and other foreign troops, there are more than 20,000 members of the Iraqi National Border Forces.

Gen Chiarelli said a dispute between Western powers and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions has prompted US and Iraqi forces to be more vigilant along the Iranian border.

The Iraqis at Fort Tarik said they had intercepted 1,972 illegals trying to cross from Iran, mostly Iranian pilgrims heading for Najaf and Kerbala.— Reuters