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Iran "mortars Kurd camp" in
Kurdistan-Iraq 18.8.2006
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Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan-Iraq,
August 18, -- An Iraqi Kurdish official accused
Iranian forces on Friday of firing a prolonged
barrage of mortar shells at a camp of Kurdish
guerrillas in Kurdistan (northern Iraq), killing two
civilians and wounding three others.
"The shelling started at 2:00 a.m. (11 p.m. British
time) and ended at 1:00 p.m. (10 a.m. British
time)," said Ruzgar Qrani, chief of security in
Sinkser district, 165 km (100 miles) north east of
Sulaimaniyah, the largest city in Kurd-controlled
Kurdistan region (northern Iraq).
Militants from minority Kurdish groups from Iran and
Turkey have based themselves in Kurdistan (northern
Iraq) and there have been a number of previous
claims by Iraqi officials that their neighbours have
conducted cross-border attacks.
He said the Iranian artillery bombarded "eight
villages, and today was the second day of strikes in
the same region" on the Iranian border.
Judi said many villagers fled their homes after the
strikes, adding that the attacks had stopped at
around 4:00 pm Friday.
For more than a year, Iran, which has its own
Kurdish minority, has been battling infiltrations by
Pejak, a Kurdish group linked to the PKK.
The PKK, which has been blacklisted as a terrorist
group by the European Union and the United States,
has been fighting the Turkish state since 1984 when
it took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in southeast
Turkey.
Ankara has long urged Washington and Baghdad to root
out the PKK from northern Iraq, but it has been told
that violence in other parts of the conflict-torn
country is more of a priority.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than
37,000 lives since 1984.
Iranian officials were unavailable for comment.
Reuters
| AFP
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