U.S. violates Vienna Convention status of Iranian liaison office in Irbil, Iraq. U.S. forces take Iranian diplomats hostage.
WayneMadsenReport
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| Bush orders U.S. forces to storm Iranian liaison office in Kurdistan removing its flag. |
In a major escalation of Middle East tensions, the Bush administration authorized two U.S. Special Forces operations against the Iranian liaison office in Irbil, Iraq and took six officials assigned to the diplomatic compound hostage. It was the first such attack on an Iranian diplomatic mission in the region since August 1998 when the Taliban entered the Iranian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan and executed ten Iranian diplomats and one journalist. Ironically, in their attacks on Iranian diplomatic missions, the Bush administration and Taliban have something in common -- both governments claimed the Iranians at the missions were members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Iran rejected the charges leveled by both regimes.
In a scene reminiscent of the Iranian seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, the U.S. confiscated documents from the Irbil office. Computers were also seized. U.S. forces also took down the Iranian flag.
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