Airdropped Iranian Leaflets Warn Kurds To Run From Coming War
48 hours to run or die…
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdish authorities in northeastern Iraq said on Tuesday they were investigating the authenticity of leaflets warning villagers to evacuate ahead of an Iranian military offensive against Kurdish rebels.
Hundreds of villagers have fled their homes in Iraq’s mountainous northeast while others hid in caves after what local authorities said was days of intermittent shelling by Iran across the border.
So far there has been no official comment from either Tehran or Baghdad about the shelling.
Cross-border fighting occasionally occurs as Iraq’s neighbors combat Kurdish separatist rebels operating from bases in Iraq’s mountainous and remote north and northeast.
The government of Iraq’s largely autonomous region of Kurdistan said it was investigating after villagers said they had seen the leaflets thrown from helicopters on Monday.
Residents said there were no identifying marks on the leaflets, written in Kurdish, apart from the words “The Islamic Republic of Iran” across the top and bottom.
The leaflets said villagers had 48 hours to evacuate before an Iranian offensive began.
“They do not carry an official stamp of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards or the Iranian Defence Ministry,” said Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the Kurdish government.
“These leaflets made many people to leave their homes.”
The leaflets said the offensive would be around the villages of Qandoul, Haj Omran and Isaw and the town of Qal’at Dizah, 325 km (200 miles) north of Baghdad.
Two women have been wounded, livestock killed, farms and orchards set ablaze and homes damaged in the shelling near small villages across a front of about 50 km (30 miles), local officials have said in the past three days.
On Saturday, the Iranian news agency Mehr said an Iranian army helicopter which crashed near the border of northern Iraq had been engaged in an operation against the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
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Sounds like an opportunity for the US to get a little “payback” to all those Iranian IED’s and EFP’s that have killed our people. Can you say “ambush”? I knew you could?
August 21st, 2007 at 6:23 am[…] Pat Dollard, “Airdropped Iranian Leaflets Warn Kurds To Run From Coming War” […]
August 21st, 2007 at 6:33 amOh I’m sure we’ve got a few preditors in the area and our spy sattelites are watching, someone will be waiting if there’s movement out of Iran
August 21st, 2007 at 6:52 amCan’t Wait for the full scale invasion into Iraq by Iran. We don’t have to strike first. Iran will jump the gun. Seems to me the Ego Factor of Russia & China is pushing them into hot water. They think they have the backing of them and now will do anything (DUMB) to TRY to make their point.
August 21st, 2007 at 8:28 amTroublesome reaction to the PKK border attacks and what, expect the coalition and Iraqi government to protect them? The PKK needs to be contained and not allowed to cause friction at the borders.I’m sure those conversations are on going;too much at stake. Turkey now supplys electricity to northern Kurdish area, thru Mosul and beyond to outlying villages while electric grids are being built everyday. Why would we want Turkey to be harrassed and targeted by the PKK and their Turkish Kurdish alliances on the other side of the borders? What benefit is there to Iraqi goals for peace, diplomacy with their neighbors and reconstruction allowing the PKK to conduct their private war? Iranian Kurds on the border are inciting attacks too close for comfort and it achieves nothing but hurt for Iraqi’s in that area. Of course we have our own strategy in the South of Iraq; different set of circumstances. Anyway, I certainly pray the people of the northern villages don’t have to pay the price.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:29 amRemember August 22nd…I don’t wanna start nothing but this is odd.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:57 am