Kurd: U.S. Sought Other Iranians in Raid

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Kurd: U.S. Sought Other Iranians in Raid

The Associated Press
Friday, April 6, 2007; 7:42 PM

BAGHDAD -- American forces who captured five Iranians in the northern city
of Irbil three months ago were really after commanders of Iran's Revolutionary
Guards who were visiting Kurdish officials, the Kurdish leader said in remarks
broadcast Saturday.

Massoud Barzani, president of the 15-year-old Kurdish autonomous region in
northern Iraq, told Al-Arabiyah television that the Iranian commanders first
visited Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah and
then went to visit him. Barzani did not say where he met the commanders,
although he was thought to have been in Irbil at the time.

He also did not say how he knew U.S. forces were trying to capture the
commanders or where they were when the Americans raided a house in Irbil
on Jan. 11 and detained the five Iranians, who still are in U.S. custody.
Irbil is the capital of the Kurdish region.

-snip-

"They did not come to detain the people in that office. There was an Iranian
delegation, including Revolutionary Guards commanders, and they came as
guests of the president. He was in Sulaimaniyah. They came to Sulaimaniyah
and then I received a call from the president's office telling me that they
wanted to meet me as well."

-snip-

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040601751.html

---

Barzani does not name the two commanders in the article.

Earlier LBN thread: The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis