Times of India Many dead in Iranian missile attacks on Iraq

BAGHDAD: A wave of Iranian missile attacks Wednesday on opposition bases in Iraq killed several people, Iran's main opposition group said, in an escalation that risks worsening ties between ex-foes Tehran and Baghdad.

Iraq warned that it reserved the right to retaliate for the "cowardly" attacks, and said the 1980-1988 war between the two neighbours had been sparked by similar incidents, but it gave no casualty toll.

It was the biggest reported missile assault on Iraqi teritory from Iran since the war.

"Iraq condemns this cowardly Iranian act of aggression which constitutes a flagrant violation of the UN charter and the rules of international law," a government spokesman said, quoted by the official INA news agency.

"Iraq reserves the right to respond with the appropriate means and at the appropriate time," he said.

He said Iranian forces had fired 56 surface-to-surface missiles at Iraqi territory and that Tehran would bear "full responsibility under international law for the human and material losses".

The Mujahadeen presence in Iraq, like the Iraqi opposition based in Iran, is a major stumbling block to the normalisation of ties between Tehran and Baghdad, who have failed to sign a peace treaty since the end of their eight-year conflict.

The latest attacks "mark a serious escalation on Iran's part against the Mujahadeen inside Iraq," a Western diplomat posted in Baghdad told AFP, asking not to be named.

He said it was "bound to have repercussions on relations between Iran and Iraq".

According to the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen, Iran's main armed opposition, Iran fired as many as 66 Scud missiles targeting at least seven of the group's camps close to the border as well as nearby Iraqi towns.

The attacks killed a Mujahedeen fighter and several Iraqi civilians in and around the southern towns of Jalawla and Basra, said the group's spokesman, Farid Suleimani, identifying the dead man as Reza Zahmatkesh, a 38-year-old from Mashhad.

Missiles crashed around bases in southern Iraq at Al-Habib, near Basra, Faeza, near the town of Kut, Al-Amara and Khales, as well as at Ashraf, 190 kilometres (115 miles) east of Baghdad, the spokesman said.

He insisted that Scud missiles were used, with the missiles leaving craters 12 metres (40 feet) across and four to five metres (13 to 16 feet) deep, and said a visit to the scene of the attacks was being arranged for journalists.

Mujahedeen leader Massoud Rajavi called on the UN Security Council to condemn the Iranian leadership for its use of "weapons of mass destruction, for exporting crises and warmongering".

The pounding followed a report by Tehran on Saturday of clashes in western Iran between Pasdaran revolutionary guards and a seven-man Mujahadeen unit trying "to infiltrate into Kermanshah province to carry out terrorist operations".

The organisation admitted that six Mujahedeen fighters died in the clashes, the latest of regular reports of bloodshed in tit-for-tat skirmishes.

In June 1999, the Mujahedeen said Iran fired Scud-B missiles at their base in Ashraf, while Baghdad also accused Tehran of targeting its territory with long-range missiles.

(AFP)

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

Answers

Amazing! I thought these boys were getting along recently. Iran was cooperating in Iraq's oil smuggling efforts. Common enemies, and all that.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

About the ol smuggling, which has been considerable, no way it could have been done (as a glance at the map shows) without Iran's knowledge.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

Peter, I recall reading last year that Iran actively condoned Iraq using Iran's territorial waters to move the tankers.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001