DEBKAfile: Kurdish sources report five helicopters carried US forces to pre-dawn raid of Iranian consulate in N. Iraqi town of Irbil
[Squeezing Iran, the WSJ is all for it.]
They were dropped on the roof while armored vehicles encircled the building. The troops used loudspeakers to call out in Farsi and Arabic to the consulate staff not to resist “or else they would be killed.†Five Iranian diplomatic staff members were detained and documents and computers impounded.
Tehran has strongly protested this breach of its sovereign territory and summoned the Swiss ambassador who represents US interests in Iran and the Iraqi ambassador to demand the immediate release of the Iranian diplomats.
Later Thursday, Jan. 11, Tehran reported three large explosions shaking the southern town of Khorramshahr north of the oil port of Abadan on the Shatt al-Arb waterway.
DEBKAfile: Khorramshahr, which faces the Iraqi town of Basra, is one of the key towns from which Iran delivers smuggled fighters, weapons and explosives to its Shiite supporters in Iraq. Our sources also report that some hours before President George W. Bush’s policy speech, a series of explosions were heard in Iranian Balochistan. Tehran imposed a blackout on the incident.
These statements and events tie in closely with the new Iraq strategy announced by the US president of confronting Iran and Syria for “allowing networks to use their territory to attack US forces.â€
