"A group of fighters from the Badr Brigade, Iraqi exiles backed by Iran, was recently apprehended by American forces in northern Iraq, American officials disclosed on Tuesday. The forces had jeeps and were equipped with rifles and other arms. They were detained as they moved toward southern Iraq", the paper added, confirming earlier reports by Iran Press Service.

The SAIRI, led by Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, is one of the six major Iraqi opposition groups recognised by the United States and formed two months ago to govern Iraq on a temporary basis in the aftermath of the ousting of Saddam Hoseyn.

Iran categorically rejects the accusations, insists that they have "nothing to do with both Badr Brigade and the SAIRI. "What we want to our Iraqi brothers is freedom and democracy, on the basis of one Iraqi one vote", Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said recently.

But now the American military is enforcing that warning by trying to stop Iranian-based forces from entering Iraq and agitating here.

"We will take steps to suppress any threats to security and stability, and that includes Iranian forces that don't comply", Maj. Gen. William Webster, the deputy commander of the allied ground command, told The NYT in an interview.

"We are going to increase our focus on routes from Iran", General Webster added. "As the country becomes more stable, we can structure ourselves to shift to the east."

In recent weeks, there has been a steady trickle of intelligence reports about efforts by Iran to influence and shape events inside Iraq.

According to reports, between 1,500 and 5,000 Badr fighters have left Iran for northern Iraq in recent months. Iranian intelligence agents and members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard are believed to be among them, American officials confirmed.

"American officials have received repeated reports through intelligence channels that Iranian agents and Iraqi exiles supported by Iran have been slipping across the border. Some have been returning to Iraq, gathering arms and setting up headquarters in towns in the south, where they have been trying to recruit supporters and organize demonstrations", the paper said.

Iran, in the view of American analysts, does not welcome a strong American role in Iraq, which would extend American political and military influence in the region.

Some political analysts say Iran is not looking to confront American forces but to influence events so that the United States fails in its effort to shape Iraq and decides to leave. Also, according to this view, Iran does not want Iraq — a rival that it fought in a long and bloody war — to become powerful again.

In a fatwa (religious order) obtained by The New York Times and issued in the Iranian city of Qom, Ayatollah Kazem Ha'eri, an Iraqi-born cleric has instructed all Iraqi Shi'a mollahs to "fill the political vacuum" in all Iraqi cities.

Hojjatoleslam Abdolaziz al-Hakim, the younger brother of the SAIRI's leader and commander of the Badr Brigade is already in Baghdad, escorted by Iranian and Iraqi body guards.

But US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has assured that Washington would not accept a Shiite-dominated theocracy to replace the toppled dictatorship in Baghdad.

General Webster said that the American military was not looking for a confrontation with Iran, but would engage Iranian-backed forces that ventured into Iraq to undermine stability there.

American forces, in fact, have already detained a small number of suspected agents who have made their way across the border, he said.

A group dedicated to overthrow the Islamic Republic with armed struggle, the MKO, which is outlawed in Iran and placed on the American’s list of terrorist organisations, was backed, financed and equipped by Mr. Hoseyn and used to act as an auxiliary to Iraqi military intelligence.

American forces bombed out the group’s bases in Iraq, forcing hundreds of MKO members to flee Iraq. Those he stayed concluded a cease-fire with the Americans, allowing it to keep its light weapons and remain in their camps, some of them near Iranian borders.

General Webster said, American forces would shift more of their attention to the east and focus on routes from Iran.

Iranians vehemently denounced the cease-fire and placing MKO men among Coalition forces to check main Iranian entry points into Iraq.