Kurds Flee Homes As Iran Shells Villages in Iraq

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 guerrillas of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an armed Iranian Kurdish group that is stepping up its campaign for Kurdish rights against the theocratic regime in Tehran.

On Saturday the Iranian news agency Mehr said an Iranian army helicopter which crashed killing six Republican Guard members had been engaged in a military operation against PJAK. Iranian officials said the helicopter had crashed into the side of a mountain during bad weather in northern Iraq. PJAK sources said the helicopter had been destroyed after it attempted to land in a clearing mined by guerrillas. The PJAK sources claimed its guerrillas had also killed at least five other Iranian soldiers, and a local pro-regime chief, Hussein Bapir.

"If this escalates it could pose a real threat to the Kurdistan region, which is Iraq's most stable area," said Mr Yawar, who said he expected the Iraqi government and US officials in Iraq to make a formal protest to Tehran about the "blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty".

The escalation of tensions in northern Iraq came as a senior US army officer renewed allegations of Iranian support for Shia militias in the south. Major-General Rick Lynch told reporters in the capital that up to 50 members of the elite Revolutionary Guard corps had crossed into Iraq and were training Shia militia members.

Analysts believe PJAK is the fastest growing armed resistance group in Iran. As well as the 3,000 or so members under arms in the mountains, it also claims tens of thousands of followers in secret cells in Iranian Kurdistan. Its campaigning on women's rights has struck a chord with young Iranian Kurdish women. The group says 45% of its fighters are female. Iranian authorities regard the group as a terrorist outfit being sponsored and armed by the US to increase pressure on Iran.

On a recent visit to PJAK camps in the Qandil mountains the Guardian saw no evidence of American weaponry. The majority of its fighters toted Soviet-era Kalashnikovs. In an interview Biryar Gabar, a member of the leadership committee, said the group had no relations with the Americans, but was "open to any group that shares our ideals of a free federal democratic and secular Iran."

'No Saigon moment'

The forces chief who planned Britain's part in the invasion of Iraq has rejected claims that Britain's withdrawal will be ugly, embarrassing and akin to America's "Saigon moment" in 1975. "I don't think it's sensible to draw any parallels between Saigon and Basra", Lord Boyce, who served as Chief of the Defence Staff between 2001 and 2003, said yesterday. "The British are not facing what the Americans were facing in Saigon, which was a well-equipped army as opposed to disparate murderers and terrorists". He was responding to claims by Bush adviser Stephen Biddle, who warned the British would have to fight their way out in an "ugly and embarrassing" retreat. US hawks have been expressing concern over British plans to cut forces in Iraq and hope to press Gordon Brown not to withdraw completely. Jonathan Steele