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Leaflets said to warn of Iran move into
Iraqi Kurdistan
21.8.2007
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Iranians order Iraqi Kurdish border villages to
evacuate
August
21, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region (Iraq), --
Kurdish authorities in Kurdistan region (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 Kurdistan 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 Iraqi Kurdistan 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 Kurdistan (northern Iraq) had been engaged
in an operation against the Party of Free Life of
Kurdistan PJAK, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK).
PEJAK (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) , took up
arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdistan
province northwestern of Iran. Half the members of
PEJAK are Kurdish women.
More than 37,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when the PKK
took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey. Turkey is home to over
25 million ethnic Kurds.
Reuters
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