BAGHDAD — Iran has shelled Iraq and
captured seven of its soldiers in an escalation of ongoing skirmishes.
Iraqi officials said the Iran Army fired artillery shells into Iraq last week
and captured seven soldiers northeast of Baghdad.
This was the most serious incident between Iran and Iraq in 2006. Last
year, Iraq reported Iranian Navy clashes with Iraqi patrols, Middle East Newsline reported.
On Saturday, the Iraqi Defense Ministry reported the Iranian capture of
seven members of an Iraqi border patrol. The ministry said the Iraqis were
detained while they were stationed at the Hankin border terminal near Haila.
The ministry said an investigation has been launched.
In August, Kurdish officials in Iraq said the Iran Army shelled
suspected insurgency strongholds in northern Iraq.
Iran has acknowledged fighting along the border. The state-owned Iranian
news agency Irna said on Sept. 7 that Iran captured seven Iraqi soldiers who
crossed into Iran's Ilam province.
"The reason for their infiltration is under investigation," Irna quoted
an Iranian security source as saying.
But Iraqi officials later said Iran provoked the clashes by firing
artillery shells into Iraq on Sept. 6. They reported artillery strikes near
the Iraqi town of Mandali, 100 kilometers from Baghdad.
On Sept. 7, officials said, an Iraqi border patrol spotted an Iranian
outpost in Iraqi territory. A clash ensued and the seven Iraqi soldiers were
captured and taken into Iran, they said.
The fighting came on the eve of a visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al
Maliki to Teheran. Al Maliki was to have flown to Iran last week, but the
visit was postponed.
In an unrelated development, a U.S. Senate report determined that former
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did not maintain a relationship with Al Qaida
or Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi. The report, released on the eve of the fifth
anniversary of the Al Qaida suicide strikes on New York and Washington,
asserted that Hussein was "distrustful of Al Qaida and viewed extermists as
a
threat to his regime."
