After The War; Kurds Fall Back From Iraq Forces

By ALAN COWELL

New York Times
April 2, 1991

... The developments in the north coincided with evidence that Iran and Iraq appeared to have rekindled a long-running proxy war. Both Iran and Iraq-based Iranian dissidents reported fighting today in rugged border areas east of Baghdad between Iranian Revolutionary Guards and members of the People's Mujahedeen, a group of opponents of the Islamic regime in Teheran.

Teheran said the dissidents crossed the border from Iraq into Iran. But spokesmen for the group in Paris and Washington said Iranian troops had tried to attack their bases near Jallula, in Iraq.

Both sides claimed to be defeating the other.

The mujahedeen's military activities ceased after the August 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq. But since Iran began supporting the revolt in Iraq in recent weeks, the Iranian dissidents have re-emerged.

A mujahedeen official said in a telephone interview from Washington: "Now we got involved because we were attacked. What else could we do but defend ourselves?"

He denied a suggestion that Iraq had ordered a revival of muhajedeen activity in response to Iran's political support for the Kurds in the north and Iraqi Shiites in the south.