http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22303951-15084,00.html
Tehran troops cross into Iraq
August 25, 2007
BAGHDAD: Iranian soldiers crossed into Iraq yesterday and attacked several small villages in the northeastern Kurdish region, local officials said.
US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver couldn’t confirm the attacks, but five Kurdish officials said troops had infiltrated Iraqi territory and fired on villages.
The Iranians regularly exchange fire with Kurdish rebels across the border, but Iraqi Kurdish officials are worried that Iran’s willingness to cross the border raises the possibility of a confrontation that would draw in Iraqi and US forces.
The Mayor of Choman, a village 400km north of Baghdad, said Iranian troops crossed the border in 10 places and travelled about 5km into the mountainous Iraqi region, bombing rural villages.
The police chief of Benjawin, a village about 320km north of Baghdad, said the attacks killed some residents.
A Kurdish militia spokesman claimed the raid was in retaliation for the recent killing by Kurds of an Iranian intelligence official.
MCT
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070823/pl_afp/usiraqviolenceramadan_070823190031
US general warns of bloody Ramadan attacks in Iraq
Thu Aug 23, 3:00 PM ET
A senior US general warned Thursday of “sensational” attacks during the upcoming Ramadan period in Iraq directed at swaying perceptions of a key upcoming US report on progress in the war there.
Brigadier General Richard Sherlock, deputy director for operational planning for the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that insurgents are likely to attempt to make use of the coincident sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the onset of Ramadan, and the much-awaited US progress report to accelerate attacks in Iraq.
“Overall, violence in Iraq has continued to decline and is at the lowest level since June 2006,” Sherlock told reporters.
“However, for the last few years, the Ramadan period has tended to be the most violent time of the year in Iraq.”
“And with the upcoming assessment from Ambassador (Ryan) Crocker and General (David) Petraeus, the start of Ramadan in mid-September, and the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on our nation, we can expect the enemy to increase their attempts to create both sensational attacks and large numbers of casualties in order to affect the reception of that report and the will of the coalition and the people of Iraq.”
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=120351
Gül lends support to Iran’s anti-PEJAK operation in Iraq
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül voiced support for a possible cross-border operation by neighboring Iran into Iraq to fight a wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) there, saying countries have the right to defend their borders.
“Unfortunately, terrorists have the ability to operate in Iraq’s north due to a power vacuum in Iraq,” Gül told a press conference after talks with Iraqi Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi in Ankara after he was asked to comment on reports that Iran was preparing for an incursion into Iraq. “They pose a threat to Turkey as well as to other neighbors. Therefore, every country has the right to defend its borders and take legitimate measures for its own security,” he said
News reports on Iraqi Kurdish Web sites and Turkish agencies said Iran’s army crossed the border into neighboring Iraq and shelled the Kandil Mountain located in northern Iraq, where PEJAK, the Iranian wing of the PKK, has camps.
Iranian troops penetrated five kilometers into Iraqi territory causing massive material damage, the Anatolia news agency said yesterday. Similar reports were released by Iraqi Kurdish Web sites on Thursday, which quoted local officials in the region as saying Iran has launched a “full-scale war.”
PEJAK terrorists are hiding in mountain shelters amid intensive shelling by the Iranian army against the group’s bases on Kandil Mountain and the Hajj Umran area, Anatolia said. Some 2,000 families fled the region due to the shelling and took shelter in tents they set up outside the mountainous zone.
Iranian authorities have declined to comment on reports of any operations so far. On Wednesday, government spokes-man Gholamhossein Elham denied reports that Iran was distributing leaflets in northern Iraq warning the villagers in the region to evacuate the area ahead of an Iranian military offensive against PEJAK.
“These leaflets are aimed at creating concern among our neighbors, especially the Kurds living in northern Iraq, by means of propaganda and psychological warfare, if the leaflets even exist,” he told reporters.
The Anatolia, citing an unidentified resident, said villagers fled their homes after some members of PEJAK came to their village and told them to leave the area because there would be massive clashes in the region soon. The villagers left their homes two days ago after taking as many belongings as possible, Anatolia reported.
Turkey and Iran are combating the PKK and PEJAK groups operating from bases in Iraq’s mountainous north and northeast. Iraqi Kurds decline to recognize the PKK as a terrorist group, so designated by the United States and the European Union, and refuse to fight against the group, saying it is an internal Turkish matter. They have also reportedly protested to Iran over the continuing shelling in northern Iraq.