Iran Launches Airstrikes Into Iraq

Weekly Standard

Iranian aircraft attacked three villages inside Iraq over the weekend. The airstrikes — Iran’s first on Iraqi soil since the U.S. invasion — could complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to normalize relations with Tehran.

“The bombardments appeared to have targeted the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish separatist group which has launched attacks on Iran from rear-supply bases in the mountains of northern Iraq,” AFP reports. Iran has attacked the Kurdish group before, with artillery. But this is the first time the Iranians followed up, with assaults from the air.

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Iran Launches Airstrikes on Iraqi Villages
Iranian aircraft attacked three villages inside Iraq over the weekend. The airstrikes — Iran’s first on Iraqi soil since the U.S. invasion — could complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to normalize relations with Tehran.
“The bombardments appeared to have targeted the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish separatist group which has launched attacks on Iran from rear-supply bases in the mountains of northern Iraq,” AFP reports. Iran has attacked the Kurdish group before, with artillery. But this is the first time the Iranians followed up, with assaults from the air.
Details on the airstrikes remain sketchy. Voice of America says the attacks were carried out by helicopters, which remained in Iranian airspace. Al-Arabiyah television, on the other hand, says it was “Iranian planes [that] raided those villages.”

It is a serious development because the Iraqi airspace is under the control of the US Air Force and under US protection. So the raids are either approved by the United States, as was the case when a US nod was previously given to the Turkish Army, or such operation was a surprise by the Iranians. According to eyewitnesses, the planes were flying at very low altitudes, which may indicate that they were trying to escape detection by radars. So these planes were able to attack many locations. Eyewitnesses and official Kurdish sources said that the raids were carried out by fighter jets and not helicopters.

In February, American fighter jets shot down an Iranian drone flying over Iraq. Such an incursion would’ve likely provoked an angry response from the previous administration. But the reaction to the drone incident was muted — perhaps in the interest of keeping the dialogue with Tehran going.

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Iran shells Iraqi Kurdistan village
Reuters
Iran shelled a Kurdish village in a remote area of northern Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdistan region on Monday, causing damage to buildings but no casualties, the region’s border police said. Brigadier-General Ahmed Ghraib, head of the border police of Kurdistan’s Sulaimaniya province, where the shelling took place, said the shells landed in a mountainous area bordering Iran.
On Saturday, Iran shelled Kurdish rebel positions in Iraqi Kurdistan and used helicopters to fire on them on the Iranian side of the border.
“Iranian shelling started at 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) until 1:15 p.m. (1015 GMT) against the villages of Penjwin. No casualties occurred except damage (to buildings),” Ghraib told Reuters
“The people of these villages have deserted the area because of the shelling,” he added.
The Iranian attacks followed clashes between Iran’s police and guerrillas from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which took up arms in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey.
Gunmen killed 10 Iranian police in that firefight in western Iran on April 25. Ten PJAK fighters were also killed, Iranian state media said.

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Wild Thing’s comment……..
Here is my quesdtion, this happened over the weekend, so why hasn’t Obama made a statement. And why didn’t FOX news have something on this. I know Obama controls all the other media but he can’t stand FOX. Maybe they mentioned it and I missed it but it wasn’t in any of my news alerts I get . Just weird!!!! Has anyone heard anything about this??????
Homeland Security has the same stories as above.
And there is this…………………
I blame Obama YEP! Obama with his withdrawl BS. Obama is trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq. Bombings increasing everyday..now Iran and Turkey acting out. The Arab League is now upset over the Iranian bombings:
Special Report: Tension escalates in Iraq
CAIRO, May 6 (Xinhua) — The Arab League (AL) expressed Wednesday its concerns about the Iran’s shelling on Kurd villages in northern Iraq.

The AL considered the Iran’s shelling as a violation to Iraq’s territory and is not in line with good neighborhood policies, adding that these actions will not serve regional stability, said an AL statement.

Iranian warplanes and artillery carried out a predawn bombardment on Iraqi villages near the Iranian-Iraqi border on Monday.

Iraq Foreign Ministry Tuesday condemned Iranian shelling of border villages in northern Kurdistan region, requesting Iran to immediately halt such violations, and warning of “severe negative impact on overall relations between the two countries.”

Iran and Turkey often attack areas inside Iraq, targeting Kurdish rebels who use Iraq’s Kurdistan as a safe haven and a launch pad for their attacks against authorities in Iran and Turkey.