Iran closed its border with northern Iraq on Monday to protest the detention of an Iranian by American forces. "All five entry points on the border between Iran and the (Iraqi) Kurdish region have been closed by the Iranian authorities from today," said Jamal Abdallah, spokesman for the autonomous Kurdish regional government.
According to AFP, Iran confirmed it had closed the border following the detention of Mahmudi Farhadi by US forces on Thursday. The US army charges that Farhadi is an officer in the covert operations arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, accused by U.S. commanders of helping Shiite militias involved in a bloody sectarian conflict.
"We have closed the border and we hope the Iraqi authorities will act as quickly as possible to release our colleague," the governor of Iran's northwestern Kordestan province, Esmaeel Najar, told AFP. "We had said that if he (Farhadi) was not freed rapidly, we would reconsider our commercial ties" with the Iraqi Kurdish region, Najar added.
Asked when the border would reopen, he replied: "We hope that the Iraqi authorities will act as swiftly as possible to free our colleague."
Meanwhile, a suicide truck bomber blew up his vehicle on Monday by an Iraqi security checkpoint near a northern city, killing five people, including two Iraqi soldiers and a police officer, the city's mayor said.
According to the AP, 17 civilians were also injured in the blast which took place at the checkpoint at the entrance of the village of Ashiq, some 25 kilometers east of Tal Afar, said mayor Najim Abdullah.
One of the wounded later died in hospital, raising the number of deaths from the attack to 6.
