The head of Iraq's intelligence agency is hiding in the United States, fearing for his life, after a wave of assassinations by Iranian agents has killed at least 140 members of the Iraqi service. So reports David Ignatius in the Washington Post. Mohammed Shahwani, a longtime Iraqi military officer who cooperated with the United States in exile, is the man in question, and the service is the Iraqi National Intelligence Service. Lots has been written about this lately, but this is the first time I've seen a report about Iranian intelligence involvement in so many murders. Years ago, people close to Chalabi told me that the Shia government were complaining that the CIA was running INIS outside of Iraqi control, but that simply means that they hadn't let Chalabi and the Shia tied to SCIRI get their hands on it. Says Ignatius:

Shahwani is now in the United States. Unless he receives assurances of support from Maliki's government, he is likely to resign, which would plunge the INIS into turmoil and could bring about its collapse. ...

Shahwani's operatives discovered in 2004 that the Iranians had a hit list, drawn from an old Defense Ministry payroll document that identified the names and home addresses of senior officers who served under the former regime. Shahwani himself was among those targeted for assassination by the Iranians. To date, about 140 officers in the INIS have been killed.

According to Ignatius, the Shia regime has created a new intelligence service called the Ministry of Security that maintains close liaison with Syrian and Iranian intelligence. Big surprise.