Feb 11 (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces implicated the "highest levels" of Iran's government in the training of Iraqi militants and showed what officials said was growing evidence of Iranian weapons being used in Iraq to kill their troops. Following are key points made by three senior coalition officials at a briefing in Baghdad on Sunday. One was a defence official, the second an explosives expert and the third a defence analyst. They all spoke on condition they not be identified. The senior defence analyst said there was no "smoking gun" linking Tehran and Iraqi militants. THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED * Fragments of an Iranian-made roadside bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator (EFPs). The U.S. military first detected use of EFPs in 2004, but noted a big increase in 2006. EFPs use shaped charges, which penetrate armour by focusing explosive power in a single direction and by firing a metal projectile embedded in the device into the target at high speed. They are strong enough to penetrate an Abrams tank. * Fragments of fins from 81-mm and 60-mm mortar bombs. One grenade from a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. * False IDs of Iranians who were detained at an Iranian government office in Arbil in Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan last month. * Slides showing other weapons, including a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile. There was no evidence these weapons had been used to shoot down helicopters, the officials said. * Slides showing a complete mortar bomb, with serial and manufacturing number. THE QODS FORCE * The officials accused five Iranians arrested by U.S. troops in Arbil in January of being members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Qods Force, which they said was getting its orders from the "highest levels" of the Iranian government. * The Qods Force was accused of training and funding Iraqi militants. * The five detained in Arbil were not carrying diplomatic passports and included one man who was a Qods Force operational chief. During the arrest raid, they tried to flush documents down a toilet. One of those arrested had traces of explosives on his body, the offiicals said. (Military experts and some exiled Iranians say the Qods Force is involved in activities abroad, but Iran does not officially acknowledge its existence. The Guards are the ideological wing of Iran's armed forces, designed to defend the revolution and its principles. It has a separate command structure to the regular military.) SURROGATES AND SMUGGLERS * The officials said Iran has several surrogate groups in Iraq, including rogue elements of the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. They said these elements "carried out the majority" of the EFP attacks. * Another group was the network of a former official of the Badr Organisation, which is part of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a major Shi'ite political organisation. * Iraqi smugglers are bringing bomb components and money in vehicles at night across three points along the Iranian-Iraqi border, the officials said.
