CON COUGHLIN REPORTS at UK's Telegraph that Iran has opened smuggling routes to supply insurgents in Iraq:

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have set up a network of secret smuggling routes to ferry men and equipment into Iraq for attacks on coalition troops, according to an exiled opposition group.

The smuggling is said to be orchestrated by the guards' elite Quds Force, which has its HQ in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) says commanders are sending a steady stream of agents and bomb-making equipment from a base codenamed "Fajr" into Iraq, where roadside attacks are carried out against coalition troops.

After The Sunday Telegraph revealed in August that Iran was supplying infra-red bombs to Iraqi insurgents, the Government held the Iranians responsible for the deaths of at least eight British soldiers.

Last week, Tony Blair condemned Iran as a "threat to world security" after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guards commander, declared that Israel should be "wiped off the map".

Western intelligence agencies have reported a sharp increase in Iran's involvement in insurgent operations since Mr Ahmadinejad was elected in June.

The agencies believe that the guards use a network of routes along Iran's 620-mile border with Iraq.

Documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph show three principal routes, two near the Iraqi cities of Basra and Amara, and a third via the Iranian town of Mehran.

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