Iran has shelled Kurdish villages in Iraq; this is clearly an act of war against a sovereign state.
Iraqi Kurdish officials expressed deepening concern yesterday at an upsurge in fierce clashes between Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian forces in the remote border area of north-east Iraq, where Tehran has recently deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guards.
Jabar Yawar, a deputy minister in the Kurdistan regional government, said four days of intermittent shelling by Iranian forces had hit mountain villages high up on the Iraqi side of the border, wounding two women, destroying livestock and property, and displacing about 1,000 people from their homes. Mr Yawer said there had also been intense fighting on the Iraqi border between Iranian forces and guerrillas of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an armed Iranian Kurdish group that is stepping up its campaign for Kurdish rights against the theocratic regime in Tehran.
This comes after an Iranian helicopter was downed, with claims after by an Iranian Kurdish rebel group (PJAK) that they had done it.
UPDATE: Masked gunmen have seized 31 hostages off a bus in Southern Iran, from Xinhua:
Armed bandits in southeast Iran stopped a bus with gunfire on Sunday and took as many as 31 Iranians as hostages, the Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.
The bus was moving on the road between the coastal port of Chahrbahar and the town of Iranshahr farther inland in the southeast province of Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, said the report.
“They took 31 passengers, including an education ministry official, the gunmen then also attacked a number of passing cars, set them on fire,” it added.
According to the local ISNA news agency, “the bandits shot at the vehicle and stopped it, 30 people were kidnapped, some other people in passing cars were also wounded during the gunfire.”
It’s also interesting to note that the hostages have all been taken cross-border into Pakistan, where the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has been very active lately, with a string of targetted assassinations and attacks.
More at the Daily Times
Also in the background the hunt for the 50 Qods Force operatives in Iraq continues.
Well, this is damn serious. Will the government of Iraq come to the aid of their Kurd brethren in Iraq???
Will the U.S. see this as a chance to finally get some pay back at the Iranians?
I mean, we have the U.S./Coalition tracking 50 Revolutionary Guards in the southern part of Iraq, we have Iranian Rev. Guards shelling the Kurds INSIDE of Iraq….if that isn’t an attack , i don’t know what is!
Lemme see….if 50 Iraqi Sunnis went on into Iran for a bit of mischief, Iran would just overlook that?
It’s time. Time to teach the Iranians a severe lesson.
We’ve sent protest. Have to follow the forms here. If they continue the actions after the protest now that’s another story.