Iraq Warns Iran Over Missile StrikeIraq has warned Iran that its missile attack on eastern Iraq risked a revival of the 1980-88 war when the two countries bombarded each other with rockets.Iran has acknowledged its armed forces attacked Iraqi bases of the rebel Mujahedeen Khalq on Wednesday morning. The acknowledgment came in a letter delivered to the U.N. Security Council in New York late Wednesday. The attack killed three people and wounded 23 others, Iraqi official media and the Mujahedeen Khalq said Thursday. All but one of the casualties were Iraqis. The attacks were followed Thursday by Iraqi reports of two pilotless Iranian reconnaissance planes being shot down on the Iraqi side of the border. Iranian state television reported the attack Thursday, but gave no word of casualties. The attack was a "limited and proportionate defensive measure" against cross-border attacks by the Mujahedeen, Iranian Ambassador Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian said in a letter to the president of the security council, British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock. Iran expects the Iraqi government "to put an end to the use of its territory for cross-border attacks and terrorist operations," the letter said. The Baghdad spokesman for the Mujahedeen Khalq, Farid Soleimani, says Iran fired 66 Scud missiles at seven of the group's camps, killing one guerrilla. The Mujahedeen says it has carried out a number of attacks on Iranian military posts during the past few days. The Iranian government has confirmed at least one of the attacks, in which six rebels were killed. |
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