Shelling Near Iranian Border Is Forcing Iraqi Kurds to Flee

Mir Hamza Farha prays as the sound of shelling thunders in the ravine where thousands of fearful Kurdish villagers in northern Iraq have taken refuge. (By Joshua Partlow -- The Washington Post)

RANIYAH, Iraq -- They have made camp below the mountainsides that smolder and smoke in the thin alpine air. They live in caves now, or old tents, or under goat-hair tarps, and sleep on woven rugs over a bed of stones. Their villages are empty of all but ducks and chickens, because the villagers will not hike back until they can no longer hear the sounds.

"Do you hear that?" asked Taban Koha Rasheed, over a deep, distant rumbling, as she knelt under her tarp in a creek bed sheltered by the walls of a steep ravine. "It's started again."

For four weeks now, Kurdish villagers in this far northeastern corner of Iraq have endured a punishing barrage of rockets and artillery shells from what they say are Iranian troops across the border. The seemingly indiscriminate shelling has burned acres of orchards and grassland, damaged homes, killed livestock and driven about 2,500 people to abandon about two dozen villages.

The attacks are an ominous reminder that the emergence of an increasingly self-sufficient Kurdish region in northern Iraq could provoke reprisals or even invasions by Iran and Turkey.

"This is the worst bombing that this area has ever seen," said Ibrahim Muhammed Amin Muhammed Sor, a 37-year-old Kurdish chicken farmer.

For a few days in August, Sor endured the barrage. These rugged mountain dwellers are accustomed to violence: The area was shelled repeatedly during the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s.

In more recent years, neighbors Iran and Turkey have staged sporadic attacks in an attempt to drive out Kurdish separatist guerrillas who reside in the hills. The attacks grew more intense beginning Aug. 16, and one night, leaflets floated down onto Sor's farm.

"The Islamic state of Iran sends its greetings," began the letter, written in a Kurdish dialect called Sorani. It accused the United States of using "hired agents and spies" in the area to "destabilize security in our country, through your borders."

"And we would like you to be aware that our land and air operations will go on through the coming days to chase away those elements," it read. "We are making you aware so that none of you get hurt."

Villagers and Iraqi officials in the area say their territory is now caught up in a growing regional war made worse by deteriorating relations between Iran and the United States. Some accuse Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has close ties with Iran, of failing to protect the Kurds.

"I don't like Saddam Hussein, but he considered this Iraqi territory and he defended it," said Aziz Khuder Hussein, 75, a shepherd and fruit tree farmer who fled his village when the shelling began. "Maliki is an ally of Iran and he would not damage his alliance for us."

In diplomatic meetings in Tehran and Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, has demanded that Iran cease its attacks in Iraq.