They'll just end up fighting over that, too.
Posted on 12/18/2009 5:54:06 AM PST by jhpigott
Al-Amara, Iraq - Iranian troops have claimed an oil well on the border of southern Iraq, a senior Iraqi military officer said Friday. Iranian troops on Thursday "occupied" the "Number 4" oil well in the Eastern Maysan oil field, located in the border district of al- Fakah, Brigadier-General Dhafir Nadhmi said in a statement Friday.
Nadhmi said that Iranian forces had taken control of the well, dug a trench around it, deployed armoured vehicles, and raised the Iranian flag over the well.
(Excerpt) Read more at earthtimes.org ...
Ever increasing attempts for Iran to play “pay attention to me!”
Or perhaps it’s time for another beer summit?
Or maybe "pay attention to this over here. Pay no attention to that over there..."
ok, maybe this is not over yet and it sounds like this is just one of several incidents in the past few days -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8420774.stm
Quote:
But Mr Khafaji later confirmed the incursion had taken place, and said 11 Iranians had dug-in at the oil well and had not left.
He said there had been no military response from Iraqi forces..
“We are awaiting orders from our leader,” he said.
The incursion is one of several that have occurred in the last few days, he said.
The well is about 500m from an Iranian border fort and about 1km from an Iraqi fort, US Colonel Peter Newell told AFP.
Look at it this way. If we don’t do anything about this, it could really undermine our credibility among the Iraqis. It could certainly be spun into the argument that we’re perfectly willing to beat up on Iraqis, but won’t lift a finger to protect Iraq’s borders and resources from foreign enemies.
That could be a motive for this move. Iran senses that we lack the political will to do anything, so they’re calculating that they’ll be able to weaken us politically in Iraq, which can only work to their benefit.
The Enlightened One is now distracted with health care, global warming and Afghanistan. It is a prime time to make a move to challenge him. He has already shown it takes at least 3 months for him to make a military decision. What have they got to loose?
It would have to be a Goat Summit.
That's very good insight. Makes sense to me. The incident *seems* to be over but it sure gives a lot to think about.
When Iraq invaded Iran Khomeini deliberately dragged out the war for 8 years because it was what helped unite Iranians behind his government, which was wobbly and unstable at the time of the invasion. It was Saddam’s brilliant idea to invade Iran that actually wound up saving Khomeini’s government.
Iran is wobbly and unstable at the moment too. We’ve got a military mutiny going on, a possibly dead supreme ledear, and several million angry, rioting voters. Nothing like taking over some Iraqi oil wells and provoking conflict to try & get the people united behind the regime....(it’s not going to work though)
I’m not sure if it’s “over” or “ongoing”, but it sure looks like Iraq has just stepped up the rhetoric -
Iranians Reportedly Launch Attacks in Disputed Iraqi Oil Area
Friday, December 18, 2009
DEVELOPING: Iranians have been launching attacks in a disputed Iraqi oil area over the past few days, Iraq’s deputy minister said, Reuters reported.
They'll just end up fighting over that, too.
I'm just learning about this for the first time so I just caught the tail of another post saying that there have been several incursions.
Somebody's stirring the pot for some reason. Nothing distracts like a good old internecine turf war masquerading as a holy jihad...
With a war going on there would be all *sorts* of excuses to buy "defensive" arms from Russia, China, etc. etc. and set them up in Israel's Iraq's way.
Yeah I read a minute ago that this is in the same place.
I’m glad we have a strong leader in the White House who will stand up to middle eastern thugs, a man who has no reservations about crushing our enemies, a great American patriot who will fight... oh never mind.
Yeah, I wrote that before I saw that it was only 11 guys. If I was right, then it was an awfully tentative move. They probably could have rolled in in battalion strength with little response.
They could just be testing the local Iraqi commander’s decision loop. Or it could have just been 11 yahoos feeling frisky from their whiskey.
I don’t think this is a handful of Iranians acting on their own based upon what retuers is reporting now -
DEVELOPING: Iranians have been launching attacks in a disputed Iraqi oil area over the past few days, Iraq’s deputy minister said, Reuters reported.
-looks like this is a concerted effort
Can any experts help us know what to believe here? Military people what is this on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being nuke em?
To me its jaw dropping but I say this in another reports saying no big deal ho hum. Which is it???
“”periodically, about every few months, the oil ministry guys from Iraq will go ... to fix something or do some maintenance. They’ll paint Iraqi colours and throw an flag up.
“They’ll hang out there for a while, until they get tired, and as soon as they go away, the Iranians come down the hill and paint it Iranian colours and raise an Iranian flag. It happened about months ago and probably happen again.””
Time to test those Iraqi Armed Forces we have been training. Will they fire on their Shiite bretheren?
This is right after the Iranians break into Air Force Control of Predators, Launch new missile and attack Twitter.
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