From: hernlem@chess.ncsu.EDU (Brad Hernlem)
Subject: Iraq combats Iranian sorties, violates peace treaty
Reply-To: hernlem@chess.ncsu.EDU (Brad Hernlem)
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 14:58:29 GMT


Reposted from soc.culture.iranian (thanks to Amir Taghavi):

        WASHINGTON (UPI) -- U.S. officials have charged that Iraq violated the
Desert Storm peace agreement when its jet fighters flew against Iranian
war planes striking at rebel bases just north of Baghdad.
        The Sunday Iranian air strike on camps in Iraq of the People's
Mujahedeen, an Iranian guerrilla group, came one day after the rebels
attacked two Kurdish settlements in Iran, officials said.
        Iraq said its artillery downed one of eight Iranian F-4 Phantoms
during the confrontation and captured the pilot and navigator.
        The Iranian F-4s, purchased from the United States during the early
1970s, were met by Iraqi jet fighters, a Defense Department official who
spoke under conditions of anonymity said. Although he did not know what
type of aircraft were flown by the Iraqis, their front-line fighter is
known to be the Soviet-built MIG-29 Fulcrum.
        A Pentagon spokesman, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Wagner, said Monday that
prior to the Gulf War Iraq's Air Force consisted of 300 fighters,
fighter-bombers and tankers. Wagner estimated that Iraq still possessed
50 combat aircraft after Operation Desert Storm, during which 90 pilots
and their planes defected to Iran and many of the rest were destroyed by
allied bombardment.
        Baghdad is barred by the peace treaty it signed after the Gulf War
with the U.S.-led allied coalition from flying fixed-wing aircraft.
        ``They had some planes in the air and we don't like it,'' said an
administration official who spoke under conditions of anonymity.
        The dogfight was the first significant confrontation between the two
countries since Iranian troops last March crossed the border and joined
with Kurdish and Shiite rebels fighting Iraqi soldiers.
        More than 1 million people died in the eight-year war between Iraq
and Iran that ended in 1988 with a U.N. resolution calling for a
cessation of hostilities.
        State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that Iraq must abide
by the U.N. resolution and the Gulf War peace agreement. The Iranian
airstrike in no way changes that obligation, he said.
        ``This incident, however, in no way affects Iraq's obligation to
comply fully with all U.N. resolutions,'' Boucher said.
        Boucher said the Iraqi minister of foreign affairs sent a letter to
the United Nations Security Council protesting the Iranian air
incursion, which international body was discussing.
        He praised the New York city police department's handling Sunday of
an attack on the Iranian diplomatic missions to the United Nations by
five intruders armed with knives. As a result of the attacks, he said,
police have ``enhanced protection of the Iranian ambassador and the
deputy permanent representative.''
        Similar attacks occurred in Ottawa and eight Western European
countries.
        ``We regret very much this violation of diplomatic premises,'' he
said. ``We regard the violation of the Iranian mission in New York and
its diplomatic missions elsewhere in the world as clear violations of
diplomatic status. ... Our police authorities in New York are taking all
necessary measures to provide protection for the Iranian mission in the
fullest possible manner.''