Most sophisticated IEDs designed in Iran

"Electronic parts made in Minnesota were smuggled through Singapore to Iran, and some of them ended up in the remote controls of makeshift bombs seized by American forces in Iraq, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.

The parts are normally used in commonplace devices like routers that wirelessly connect computers and printers in a typical office network. The Justice Department said in an indictment that the ones smuggled to Iran had been put to use in sophisticated improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, that could be triggered from miles away.

...About 60 percent of all American casualties in Iraq have been caused by makeshift bombs, and the American military has long reported finding evidence that the most sophisticated and deadly of them were designed or fabricated in Iran.

By implicating Iran, at least circumstantially, in insurgent attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, the charges add to the ever worsening tensions between the countries. Two weeks ago, the United States accused Iran of complicity in a foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington."