As the bombs fall, Iraq's Kurds have 'no friends but the mountains'

[cal04]

Shell craters and dead branches torn off the trees by explosions mark the places in the mountains of northern Iraq targeted by Iranian artillery firing across the border in a serious escalation of the confrontation between Iran and the US. Frightened villagers, whose farms cling to the sides of the deep valleys below Kandil mountain, ran for their lives as Iran opened fire on Iraqi territory for the first time since the US invasion in 2003. Local officials said about 2,000 shells were fired in four hours.

"I was woken up by the sound of the shelling in the middle of the night and I saw there was fire everywhere," said Meri Hamza Farqa, an elderly Kurdish woman from Shinawa village. "The children and I ran out of the house and scattered in different directions. A shell blew up near me and I was hit by mud and stones. Later I saw blood coming from my arm." The old saying of the Kurds that they "have no friends but the mountains" is truest here among the towering peaks along on the frontier with Iran.

For the first time in their tragic history the Kurds believe they are close to being recognised as a nation within Iraq but they fear that their powerful neighbours - Iran, Syria and Turkey - will snatch away their victory at the last moment. A natural fortress without paved roads, the Kandil region can only be entered by moving along rough tracks cut into the sides of ravines, and by using fords to cross rivers where the water is two feet deep.

For several years the area has been controlled by heavily armed Kurdish guerrillas from the Turkish Kurd PKK movement, which conducts operations across the border in Iran. The Kurdish farmers, herding their sheep and cattle and living in almost total isolation, find it unfair that they should be among the first victims of Iranian-American rivalry. Asked why the shelling had taken place, Saida Sirt, the commander of the PKK guerrillas in Kandil, said: "The Iranians wanted to send a warning to the Americans, the Kurdish parties and ourselves."

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article485023.ece

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

1. I couldn't find any updates out there today

on this article. This is the first I've heard of the Kurd area getting hit by Iran. Did any cable news cover this?
excerpted the last 2 paragraphs~

~We met Saida Sirt, a dapper man of 35 in Kurdish military uniform carrying a bamboo swagger stick, at the cemetery. He said that he considered all of Kurdistan his home whether he was living among the Kurds of Turkey, Iraq, Syria or Iran. Currently he was leading the Iranian section of the PKK, and in response to the bombardment he would send more fighters into Iran.

Commander Sirt saw the shelling of Kandil, probably rightly, as part of the complicated game being played between the US, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the Kurds. He was not sure if there would be another attack by Iran or anyone else, but whatever happened he said he would defend his mountain fortress to the last. ~