(The Jewish Daily - Forward) - Last week an American general in Baghdad announced that a veteran Hezbollah commander had been caught in Iraq and had admitted to training and directing anti-American Iraqi militias in coordination with Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Guard. The presence of Hezbollah in Iraq has been alleged by American officials before, but last week's announcement marked the first time the militant Shi'ite group has been accused of involvement in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq.

The drumbeat of American accusations against Iran has been growing in recent months, during which time the American military has detained several Iranian officials in Iraq. While the initial allegations focused on Iranian support for Shi'ite militias in Iraq, they now also include backing for Sunni Iraqi groups and Tehran's erstwhile enemy in Afghanistan, the Taliban.

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Mark Perry, a military analyst who has been in regular contact with Hezbollah, is skeptical of Bergner's claims. The general became the head spokesman for the American military in Iraq in June, having served previously as a special assistant to President Bush.

"I don't believe this report, because it's not in the interest of Hezbollah," said Perry, a co-director of Conflicts Forum, which has organized meetings in recent years between leaders of the militant group and former American and British intelligence officials. "I am bothered that a general in Baghdad makes these claims instead of the civilian leadership in the Pentagon."

Others have noted multiple reasons why Hezbollah would have an interest in being involved in Iraq. Israeli operatives are allegedly on the ground in Kurdistan, the largely autonomous northern region whose leadership has relatively friendly relations with Jerusalem. And a number of those who founded Hezbollah in the early 1980s were members of the Lebanese branch of Dawa, an Iraqi Islamist party now headed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.