Iran Shelling Iraqi Kurdish Villages

The story unfolds, beginning with a downed Iranian helicopter.

The Guardian:

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 upon 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.

Is Iran stretching itself too thin? While fighting Kurds up north, the US military is hunting the IRG throughout the rest of the country. They may soon reach the breaking point.