Leaflets said to warn of Iran invasion of northern Iraq
Pastor Dale Morgan
Leaflets said to warn of Iran invasion of northern Iraq*
Reuters
Tuesday, August 21, 2007; 6:35 AM
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).
Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since
1984, when it launched its struggle for an ethnic homeland in Turkey's
southeast.