According to AKI, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has threatened to kidnap U.S. soldiers in Iraq if five Iranian officials arrested by the U.S. in connected to terrorist attacks in Iraq are not released.

In an article published by the Pasdaran’s mouthpiece, Sobhe Sadegh, the director of the centre for strategic studies of the Iranian presidency, Reza Zakeri, also says Iran will retaliate against any further abduction of Iranian nationals.

“The United States has put together a list including the names of 35 high officials of the Pasdaran and Iran’s atomic agency to kidnap and question them on the military and nuclear potential of the Islamic Republic but if they will try to kidnap even one person our reaction will be harsh and immediate,” Zakeri wrote in the article.

“The US military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Caucasus, central Asia, Europe and Latin America is significant and at the same time extremely isolated and therefore abducting a US soldier in uniform is less expensive than buying a low quality product made in China,” the article also said.

Stressing how the Mahdi militia of Shiite radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who have no military preparation, were able to kidnap US soldiers, the Sobhe Sadegh article claimed it would be an easy enough task for the well-trained Pasdaran.

“Even if a state had no influence in the country where US troops were posted and had no close relations with local forces and, finally, even if it did not have well-trained officers for similar actions, it would not be difficult to capture blond men with blue eyes wearing a military uniform, it would just be necessary to open a wallet and be generous,” Reza Zakeri concluded.

I suppose that means my red headed breathren in the U.S. military are fine, but see if you follow this logic. It’s a known Iran has armed insurgent groups in Iraq that have killed U.S. personnel. It’s a known Iran supports terrorist groups who view the United States as the enemy, and has used those groups to start wars previously while Iran is moving on with a nuclear program to which the IAEA has issues with. The United States fights back, finally, and arrests five people including a man who is believed to be a leader of the QUDS force and Iran thinks it has legs to stand on. Typical, really.

But would such an attack be as easy as the Sobhe Sadegh journalist believes? With the exception of last week’s attack in Karbala, to which I’ll discuss below, there have been a total of four living U.S. soldiers abducted in three years in Iraq. One left a U.S. base on his own and ended up in Jordan. Another, Matt Maupin, remains a complete mystery. Two more were taken hostage after an Al Qaida in Iraq ambush at a checkpoint to be tortured and mutilated, though it’s entirely unclear if they were dead or alive that the time. That’s a pretty good track record of keeping you soldiers safe.

Last week in Karbala, a sophisticated raid that included marked SUVs, American uniforms and at least one person bleaching their hair to drive past security checkpoints among other methods to disguise identity and abduct American soldiers was undertaken. All of that isn’t easy to do, other than, I suppose, finding hair dye in Iraq. That leads Bill Roggio to wonder if Iran was behind the attack, meaning today’s threat has been carried out before.

Either way, as I’ve said repeatedly, Iran is already at war with the United States and has been for quite some time now. It’s just a matter of whether or not the U.S. responds and how they choose to do so.