Read from SIM card via USB modem

I'm working on a project with a duemilanove and a Huawei E160 usb modem/SIM. I'd like to read messages from the SIM via the arduino, but have no idea how to get started. I've seen the discussion of writing data to USB memory.

In a related project, I have used python code to initiate AT commands via serial to read messages from the SIM. Is there any way to do this with the arduino?

Many thanks for any thoughts,
Jeremy