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London Times

This could easily be part of the IRAN section. It's not as I don't want to concern our British friends that this activity is anything but continuing the mission in Iraq. We have NOT absconded with the SAS/SBS nor are they operating at OUR behest to prepare the ground for an Iranian invasion.

Make no mistake though. Most of us have suspected that MNF-I wasn't giving the Iranians a free run at re-supply within Iraq. Capture of al-Quds officials in Iraq and near-constant rumblings of desert engagements near the border have made these assumptions reasonable.

For operational reasons we know nothing of these activities. Clearly the American and British SOF commands wish it so. Still, the central issue here is the press speculation which surrounds the use/misuse (what a giggle) of these forces and where. Most military men will understand that if SAS is operating on the Iranian border, it's not to prep an invasion. If so, they'd be elsewhere deep in Iran for their recon forays. There's not much to see on the border except...gun smugglers.

Why SOF? Since when don't regular infantry forces train to perform exactly these missions- patrolling and ambushing? For that matter, what stops the Iraqi gov't. from posting twenty guys every five hundred yards. That'd stop it-were they motivated to do so. Instead, not just the world's finest light infantry, but it's finest SOF forces are playing customs duty inspectors on smuggling trails in the middle of nowhere.

That's wrong but it perfectly characterizes what happens when you roll in the mud with pigs. We are protecting Iraqis from Iranians and Iraqis and doing so with our quietest troops lest we embarass the Iraqi and Iranian gov'ts.

Chew on that one. I did and damn near threw up.

We need to go. Hope the Turks, btw, kick the holy s**t out of the PKK and anybody else that gets in their way. The Kurds have been fairly warned and appear to need a BIG lesson in regional sand-box etiquette. Might be good to have the rules of the game reinforced a little.

Done ranting.

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"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

dave lukins

It's just been reported that 9 turkish soldiers have been killed in Hakkari Province

S-2

Dave,

That province is the ultimate "badlands". Tri-border with Iraq and Iran. Nobody here is a bigger supporter of the Kurds but I've LONG been writing that it'll take the Peshmerga closing the backdoor to eradicate the PKK. And that's now necessary. I've also said that the PKK is a direct threat to Kurdistan and that pan-kurdish ambitions end at the present borders. This is as good as it'll get for the Kurds and it can get worse- but there'll be no "Greater Kurdistan".

Something flat-out is gonna give there soon. I'd presume that the U.S. government is doing some SERIOUS consultations just now with Iraq and the KRG. Funny thing is the pull that an autonomous regional gov't has in an international dispute.

Feanor

Are they operating ON the Iranian border or INSIDE the Iranian border?

''BRITISH special forces have crossed into Iran several times in recent months as part of a secret border war against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Al-Quds special forces, defence sources have disclosed.''

Sounds to me like open, and illegitimate, attacks on Iranian special forces. Why the SOF are doing it is pretty obvious: to avoid an international scandal.

Shek

So gunrunning and EFP running is legitimate and isn't an international scandal?

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"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

dave angel

all manner of things can be part of a 'war', many of them have nothing whatsoever to do with killing.

the wording is staggeringly imprecise, it doesn't differentiate between, 'Hot-Pursuit', massed AirLand attacks and navigational errors. all of which have a significant impact on what is actually happening.

22SAS went into the RoI quite a bit during their war with PIRA/INLA/CIRA/RIRA, but usually because they got lost, they also ate significant quantities of fried egg sandwiches, watched some dodgy porn, farted, scratched their arses and wrote off a great may cars. so masterbation, bad cooking, worse driving and bad personal hygene were all 'part of the war' againts PIRA/I can't believe its not the Real IRA, however i've yet to see any evidence that 22SAS attempted to either poison the IRA (s) through their God-awful cooking, mow them down in dodgy traffic accidents or drown them in errant semen.

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before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes.................... then when you do criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Feanor

Is it government backed? And do you have evidence of that?

Shek

A red herring, but given that there are Iranian military elements operating within Iraq, that's a pretty weak question to ask (not to mention the Iranian government backed proxies elsewhere in the Middle East).

Feanor

Then take it up in the ICJ. Do it legitimately. You don't wright a wrong with another wrong. Or better yet simply destroy the Iranian military elements functioning in Iraq illegally. Then if Iran complains, you can expose them, and if they don't, the problem is solved.

Shek

What's the ICJ going to do? Whose going to enforce any ICJ decision?

Already being done, but the problem isn't solved since Iran is still sending stuff across the border. However, they won't complain, because they are fighting through proxies with some small Iranian cadre support, and any overt acknowledgement will place Iran's UN protectors into a bind in the diplomatic cat and mouse game over the larger geopolitics of the situation.

Feanor

So just defend the border, and make sure nothing gets across. You'll be both in your right and stopping the problem. Raiding into Iran is making the whole situation more sketchy and putting both sides in the wrong.

A ICJ decision could give legal ground to cross-border raids.

Officer of Engineers

In order for the ICJ to work, both sides must respect the court's jurisdiction and legal precedence. It is clear that neither country thinks much of the ICJ and hence, any decision is not binding on anyone.

Raiding into Iran sends a signal. The Americans are ready for an escalation. The question is, are the Iranians.

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Chimo

S-2

"So just defend the border..."

Yeah. That's my fault. I shouldn't have given you the impression that we could post little FFL beau geste posts every five hundred yards. It's not that simple or easy, nor do we know what's being done and how. Pointless to speculate much beyond where we already are.

Ophir

They cannot build an analogue of the Berlin or the Korean wall in Iraq right now. I reckon it's logistically and financlially impossible. No one is going to deny that such raids are diplomatically dangerous, that's why they're 'hush-hush'.

I agree with you, though, that it would be good for the US forces to produce Iranian infiltrators in Iraq, dead or alive (preferably alive). I don't think the MNF has done it yet.

C'mon, there is no chance at all that the World Court would sanction a cross-border raid anywhere in the world.

VarSity

I doubt there have been real far reaching incursions into Iran. A mile here or there but it would be in the SAS's interest to keep the fight within Iraq so they can call in all the air support in the world without having to worry about Iran turning up at the UN complaining about Airspace violations.

Also isn't the border fairly arguable? Both Iraq and Iran state its at different points. Whose maps do we work to?

It does seem like a nit of a waste of this is the sort of thing 22SAS are being used for. Surely any recon section with a half dozen Land Rovers could do the job just as well.