- Royal Marines were deployed to Iraq's border with Iran
yesterday in a move that will unnerve Teheran's regime, which fears encirclement
by American-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
-
- The Ministry of Defence said the Royal Marines were merely
"securing their area of operations" after seizing at the Faw
peninsula.
-
- But with Iranian troops manning positions on the other
side of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, British forces face a highly sensitive
task.
-
- Tensions were illustrated by a succession of border incidents.
A rocket struck an Iranian oil refinery depot in Abadan, just across from
Basra, on Friday injuring two people while there were reports on Monday
that Iranian forces had fired on British troops on the Faw peninsula.
-
- Iran, part of America's "axis of evil", is
formally neutral but fears it could be the next target for attack.
-
- It is torn between publicly denouncing the "imperialist"
war on a fellow Muslim country and co-operating tacitly with America and
Britain in removing the old enemy, Saddam Hussein.
-
- America has waged war against two of Iran's most hated
foes, the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Ba'athists in Baghdad.
But the "Great Satan", as America is known, now has forces on
two of Iran's borders.
-
- Neighbouring Arab countries have long feared a war in
Iraq could suck in forces from Turkey and Iran.
-
- Western diplomats said Turkish intervention to forestall
any Kurdish attempt to seize greater autonomy could encourage Iran to cross
the border to support fellow Shi'ites and clear out bases of the main Iranian
opposition group, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq.
-
- The leading Iraqi Shi'ite opposition group, the Supreme
Council of the Islamic Revolution, has thousands of fighters in Iran. Some
have slipped into Iraqi Kurdistan and many more may cross the border to
claim a stake in the future Iraqi government.
-
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/200
- 3/03/26/wiran26.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/03/26/ixnewstop.html
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