If Iranian planes are flying in to Iraqi airspace why is the U.S. Air Force not taking them out?
Does the U.S. Air Force not control the skies above Iraq?
Were I a fighter jockey I’d love to take a shiny Iranian jet and blow it to hell.
Iran has been striking Kurdish positions in Iraq for decades. Even when President Bush was in office! Iraqi airspace can’t be controlled 24/7. The close proximity of the targets to the Iranian border precludes this.
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/turkey/8524072.asp?gid=231&sz=59500
Iran shells Kurdish militants bases in N.Iraq: Kurdish official
Iranian artillery shelled on Sunday three border towns in northern Iraq where Iranian Kurdish militants are believed to be operating, an Iraqi Kurdish official said.
The shelling on the towns of Marado, Razda and Dolakoka started at 7:00 a.m. and lasted for about two hours, said Azad Watho, a top administrative official in Sulaimaniyah city. Watho, who is administratively in charge of these towns, said the shelling had targeted the fighters of the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PEJAK, but had no more details.
Sulaimaniyah, one of three provinces that make up Iraq’s semiautonomous region of Kurdistan, is located about 260 kilometers (160 miles) northeast of Baghdad.
Tehran had no immediate comment on the report and officials could not be reached because of the official Nowruz, or New Year, holiday in the Persian nation. The Iranian army frequently shells villages in the mountains of northern Iraq where it alleges that members from PEJAK, a breakaway faction of the outlawed separatist PKK, are based.
In a similar shelling by Iran last September, a former chief of the elite Revolutionary Guard, said Tehran considers shelling the guerrilla its right in order to protect its security. Iran repeatedly has said the PEJAK regularly launch attacks inside Iran from bases in Iraq in the Qandil Mountain area that borders Iran and Turkey.
Last August, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari strongly criticized Iranian artillery and warned that it would negatively effect the relations between the two neighboring countries. Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the collapse of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Iraqi government has had good relations with Iran.
The two countries experienced an eight year war, launched by Iraq in 1980 that left 1 million killed on both sides.
http://www.aina.org/news/20070523160405.htm
Iran Shells Kurdish Guerrilla Haven in Northern Iraq
The barrage lasted much of the day and targeted several villages, said Hussein Ahmed, the mayor of Bashdar, one of the targeted villages.
“I expect there will be both human and material losses, but I do not know right now the extent of the damage,” he told reporters.
The snow-capped Qandil mountains run along Iraq’s border with both Turkey and Iran, and are home to separatist guerrillas from the anti-Iranian faction Pejak, an offshoot of Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which opposes Turkey.
The movements have fought for decades for the autonomy of the Kurdish people, though recently they claim to have abandoned violence in favor of a peaceful solution.
Turkey has threatened to invade the northern Iraqi PKK haven if their activities are not reigned in by the Iraqi Kurdish regional government, while Iran frequently shells the area.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1145961254911&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
2006
On Sunday, Iranian artillery fired more than 180 shells into the same area of northern Iraq, also targeting Kurdish rebel bases but causing no casualties, the Iraqi government said. Those shells landed near the Iraqi village of Haj Omran, which is about 3 miles inside the Iraq-Iran border, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense said.