Add to the Iranian military buildup the recent meeting between Russia, China and Iran and you have one hell of a military situation in the ME right now.

U.S. General: Americans Tracking Iranian Forces

August 19, 2007
The Associated Press
Dalla News
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...dp.7757a3.html

BAGHDAD -- American forces are tracking about 50 members of an elite Iranian force who have crossed the border into southern Iraq to train Shiite militia fighters, a top U.S. general said Sunday. The French foreign minister, meanwhile, arrived in Baghdad on a groundbreaking visit after years of icy relations with the United States over Iraq.

Separtely, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, whose command includes the volatile southern rim of Baghdad and districts to the south, said his troops are tracking about 50 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps in their area – the first detailed allegation that Iranians have been training fighters within Iraq's borders.

"We know they're here and we target them as well," he said, citing intelligence reports as evidence of their presence.

He declined to be more specific and said no Iranian forces have been arrested in his territory.

"We've got about 50 of those," he said, referring to the Iranian forces. "They go back and forth. There's a porous border."

The military has stepped up allegations against Iran in recent weeks, saying it supplies militants with arms and training to attack U.S. forces.

Iran denies the allegations and says it supports efforts to stop the violence.

The Bush administration is moving toward blacklisting Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "terrorist" organization, subjecting at least part of the entity to financial sanctions, U.S. officials said this week.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/m... egion%26quot

Middle East News

Iran "massing troops near northern Kurdish region"
Aug 19, 2007, 14:27 GMT

Baghdad - Iranian troops are reportedly massing along the northeastern stretch of the Iran-Iraq border near Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, sources in Hajj Omran town in the northern Arbil province said Sunday.

The unnamed Kurdish source said Iranian forces looked about to launch a large-scale offensive targeting members of the Kurdish workers' party and the Party for Freedom and Life known as PJAK.

Members of the 'rebel' groups, who fiercely oppose the governments of Iran and Turkey, are said to be based near mountains that stretch along the borders with Iran.

On Saturday, unconfirmed Iranian reports had said that they succeeded in shooting down an Iranian helicopter involved in military manoeuvres in northeastern Iran.

Military attacks targeting the two Kurdish groups are not uncommon. Only last Thursday, Iranian and Turkish forces shelled two northern Iraqi border cities in the autonomous region.

On the same day, a group of Kurdish villages were bombed while an intense Iranian strike on the province of Sulaimaniya was also reported.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Baghdad - Iranian troops are reportedly massing along the northeastern stretch of the Iran-Iraq border near Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, sources in Hajj Omran town in the northern Arbil province said Sunday.

The unnamed Kurdish source said Iranian forces looked about to launch a large-scale offensive targeting members of the Kurdish workers' party and the Party for Freedom and Life known as PJAK.

Members of the 'rebel' groups, who fiercely oppose the governments of Iran and Turkey, are said to be based near mountains that stretch along the borders with Iran.

On Saturday, unconfirmed Iranian reports had said that they succeeded in shooting down an Iranian helicopter involved in military manoeuvres in northeastern Iran.

Military attacks targeting the two Kurdish groups are not uncommon. Only last Thursday, Iranian and Turkish forces shelled two northern Iraqi border cities in the autonomous region.

On the same day, a group of Kurdish villages were bombed while an intense Iranian strike on the province of Sulaimaniya was also reported.

Kurds flee homes as Iran shells villages in Iraq

Michael Howard in Irbil
Monday August 20, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story...rc=rss&feed=12

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards participate in military training at an undisclosed location near the Gulf. Photograph: AFP/Getty

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 up on 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.

On Saturday the Iranian news agency Mehr said an Iranian army helicopter which crashed killing six Republican Guard members had been engaged in a military operation against PJAK. Iranian officials said the helicopter had crashed into the side of a mountain during bad weather in northern Iraq. PJAK sources said the helicopter had been destroyed after it attempted to land in a clearing mined by guerrillas. The PJAK sources claimed its guerrillas had also killed at least five other Iranian soldiers, and a local pro-regime chief, Hussein Bapir.

"If this escalates it could pose a real threat to the Kurdistan region, which is Iraq's most stable area," said Mr Yawar, who said he expected the Iraqi government and US officials in Iraq to make a formal protest to Tehran about the "blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty".

The escalation of tensions in northern Iraq came as a senior US army officer renewed allegations of Iranian support for Shia militias in the south. Major-General Rick Lynch told reporters in the capital that up to 50 members of the elite Revolutionary Guard corps had crossed into Iraq and were training Shia militia members.

Analysts believe PJAK is the fastest growing armed resistance group in Iran. As well as the 3,000 or so members under arms in the mountains, it also claims tens of thousands of followers in secret cells in Iranian Kurdistan. Its campaigning on women's rights has struck a chord with young Iranian Kurdish women. The group says 45% of its fighters are female. Iranian authorities regard the group as a terrorist outfit being sponsored and armed by the US to increase pressure on Iran.

On a recent visit to PJAK camps in the Qandil mountains the Guardian saw no evidence of American weaponry. The majority of its fighters toted Soviet-era Kalashnikovs. In an interview Biryar Gabar, a member of the leadership committee, said the group had no relations with the Americans, but was "open to any group that shares our ideals of a free federal democratic and secular Iran."