Kurdish Rebels Reportedly Battling Iraqi Forces

Iranian-backed Kurdish guerrillas were reported to be battling Iraqi troops Sunday in mountainous northeastern Iraq after the Kurds seized at least three Iraqi towns.

Iran’s official news agency IRNA, monitored in Nicosia, said Iraqi warplanes and artillery have been pounding Kurdish strongholds in Sulaymaniyah province.

The agency said that guerrillas of the Patriotic Front of Kurdistan, backed by Iranian commandos, have driven Iraqi forces out of three towns since Wednesday, often in hand-to-hand fighting.

Iraq’s Baghdad radio made no mention of IRNA’s claims.

A spokesman for the Patriotic Front of Kurdistan said the fighting erupted last week when government troops tried to carry out orders to deport people from Kurdish towns and villages in the area to special camps in other parts of Iraq.

The guerrillas urged villagers to demonstrate against the orders and later joined them in fighting the troops. The spokesman said the rebels captured Khormal, about 250 miles northeast of Baghdad, after earlier capturing nearby Sirvan, and are fighting government troops in at least five other villages.

IRNA reported that 1,500 Kurdish refugees, mostly women and children, crossed into western Iran last week to flee what the agency termed “indiscriminate Iraqi bombing.”

Both the Kurds and Iran have accused Iraq of using chemical weapons against Kurdish villages in apparent reprisal for the escalation in guerrilla attacks in the region 50 miles from Iraq’s vital Kirkuk oil field.

The United Nations reported Wednesday that Iraq has repeatedly used mustard gas, nerve gas and other toxic gases against Iranian forces in the 6 1/2-year-old war between the two nations.