Free Republic

Over the past week, with Iranian shells raining down on Iraqi villages in Kurdish areas along the border zone in the north, Iran’s leaders have engaged the United States in a high stakes game that has gone virtually unreported in the elite media. Iran has massed thousands of troops along its northwestern border in preparation for a ground assault against Iranian Kurdish fighters who have sought refuge in the rugged Qanbil mountains in northwestern Iraq.

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 skirmishes occasionally occur as Iraq's neighbors Turkey and Iran combat Kurdish separatist rebels operating from bases in Iraq's mountainous and...

QANDOUL, Iraq -- Frightened villagers hid in caves in Iraq's mountainous northeast while others fled on Monday, saying four days of intermittent shelling by the Iranian military had destroyed farms and killed livestock. "Iran is attacking us like Satan. Many cattle were killed, farms were burned, we have nothing left," said Qadir Mohammed, a cattle herder from Qandoul village in Iraq's remote northeast. "We do not know when we are going to be killed. This is not a way of life. We cannot eat, sleep or move," he cried. Qandoul is about two kilometers from the Iranian border. Local officials...

BAGHDAD -- A top US general Sunday claimed that around 50 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards are inside Iraq and training Shiite extremists to launch attacks on US and Iraqi security forces. Major General Rick Lynch, commander of US forces in central Iraq, told reporters that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards unit, the Quds Force, have set up in central provinces such as Babylon, Karbala, and Najaf, as well as southern belts outside Baghdad. "The border [between Iran and Iraq] is porous and they [Quds Force members] come back and forth all the time ... they are physically...

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...

. 16 (UPI) — Three gunmen killed by U.S. troops in Iraq this week were members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, a U.S. military statement said in Baghdad. The U.S. Army statement said that in several anti-insurgency attacks this week, a total of nine gunmen were killed. However, in one raid in northeastern Baghdad targeting a leader of the Iranian Guards’ foreign fighters known as Al-Quds, three of his aides were killed by U.S. forces, Kuwait’s KUNA news agency reported.

Iranian forces crossed Iraqi border: report Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces have been spotted by British troops crossing the border into southern Iraq, The Sun tabloid reported on Tuesday. Britain's defence ministry would not confirm or deny the report, with a spokesman declining to comment on "intelligence matters". An unidentified intelligence source told the tabloid: "It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran -- but nobody has officially declared it." "We have hard proof that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have crossed the border to...

Iran bombers attack Our Boys IRANIAN forces are being choppered over the Iraqi border to bomb Our Boys, intelligence chiefs say. Military experts claim this worrying move means we are at WAR with Iran in all but name. Last night an intelligence source told The Sun: “It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran — but nobody has officially declared it. “We have hard proof that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have crossed the border to attack us. “It is very hard for us...

IRANIAN forces are being choppered over the Iraqi border to bomb Our Boys, intelligence chiefs say. Military experts claim this worrying move means we are at WAR with Iran in all but name. Last night an intelligence source told The Sun: “It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran — but nobody has officially declared it.

HERAT: More than 20 armed men crossed the border from Iran into Afghanistan and entered a town, a police commander said in the first such blunt claim by a high-ranking Afghan official. Colonel Rahmatullah Safi - police commander in the three western provinces of Farah, Badghis and Herat - said according to intelligence information, the group of armed militants crossed the border Monday in Farah's Anardara district. "Two pickup trucks with over 20 armed people riding in them crossed the border from Iran to Afghanistan," Safi said in his Border Police headquarters, 15 km outside Herat city. He said according...

WASHINGTON, June 25 (UPI) -- Iranian involvement in fomenting instability in Iraq is said to be increasing, and is not limited to providing sophisticated roadside bombs and armaments. U.S. forces in Iraq have captured a small number of extremists who have been trained recently in Iran in mortar and rocket operations, according to a top U.S. commander.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces have been spotted by British troops crossing the border into southern Iraq, The Sun tabloid reported on Tuesday. Britain's defence ministry would not confirm or deny the report, with a spokesman declining to comment on "intelligence matters". An unidentified intelligence source told the tabloid: "It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran -- but nobody has officially declared it." "We have hard proof that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have crossed the border to attack us. It is very hard...

Iran successfully test-fired a submarine-launched long-range missile in the Persian Gulf, Iranian state television reported on Sunday. The test was part of a continuing series of military exercises the Islamic Republic began earlier this month.

Iran is set to respond later Tuesday to a demand from the West that it stop enriching uranium, but a more pressing matter appeared to be taking place in the Persian Gulf, where the Islamic republic's military fired on and took over a Romanian oil rig. According a Bloomberg report, an Iranian naval vessel opened fire on the rig with machine guns, boarded it and seized control of the radio room. The rig is owned by Romania's Grup Servicii Petroliere. A representative of the rig's owner said in the report that it has 26 workers on board.

<p>BUCHAREST, Romania -- A Romanian oil rig off the coast of Iran came under fire Tuesday from an Iranian military warship and was later occupied by Iranian troops, a company spokesman said.</p> <p>The Iranians first fired into the air and then fired at the Orizont rig, said GSP spokesman Radu Petrescu. Half an hour later, troops from the ship boarded and occupied the rig and the company lost contact with the 26 crew members shortly afterward....</p>

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - One of the defendants in the new trial of Saddam Hussein insisted on Tuesday that the military was attacking only Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels when it launched the Anfal campaign in the 1980s in which tens of thousands of Kurds were killed. Sultan Hashim al-Tai spoke on the second day of the trial, in which Saddam is charged with genocide over the 1987-88 Operation Anfal in northern Iraq. Al-Tai, who was the commander of Task Force Anfal and head of the Iraqi Army 1st Corps, said Anfal was launched in areas of the north that...

BUCHAREST, Romania -- A Romanian oil rig off the coast of Iran came under fire Tuesday from an Iranian military warship and was later occupied by Iranian troops, a company spokesman said. The Iranians first fired into the air and then fired at the Orizont rig, said GSP spokesman Radu Petrescu. Half an hour later, troops from the ship boarded and occupied the rig and the company lost contact with the 26 crew members shortly afterward. Petrescu said he had no information about any injuries or deaths. The Orizont rig has been moored near Kish island in the Persian Gulf...

Iran's state television today said the military would launch a series of large-scale exercises on August 19. State television quoted army deputy commander General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani as saying that the upcoming maneuvers "aim at introducing Iran's new defensive doctrine."Ashtiani reportedly said the exercises would involve both ground and air forces and would go on "for an unspecified period of time." Addressing reporters at a news briefing on August 16, Ashtiani said the war games would take place in West and East Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Baluchestan va Sistan, and Khorasan provinces. Most of those peripheral provinces also have large ethnic minority...

JERUSALEM — The bodies of Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers killed by the Israeli army in Lebanon have been transported to Syria and flown to Tehran, senior Lebanese political sources said. Israeli and Egyptian security officials confirmed the news, which follows a report that first appeared in The New York Sun, that Iranian forces posted to southern Lebanon have been aiding Hezbollah terrorists in their attacks against Israel, including helping to fire rockets into Israeli population centers. regularly to

Posted: July 23, 2006 4:15 p.m. Eastern By Aaron Klein © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com JERUSALEM – The bodies of Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers who were killed by the Israeli army in Lebanon have been transported to Syria and flown to Tehran, senior Lebanese political sources told WorldNetDaily. The information was confirmed by Israeli and Egyptian security officials. It follows scores of reports the past few days Iranian soldiers have been aiding Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon in their attacks against Israel, including help with the firing of rockets into Israeli population centers. The Lebanese sources said between six and nine deceased Iranian...