TEHRAN, 30 October — Iraq’s southeastern marshlands have been set ablaze and huge clouds of smoke have drifted over to Iran, officials said yesterday, with some pointing the finger at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
A spokesman for an Iranian provincial environmental protection office near the Iraqi border said a blanket of choking smoke has hit the frontier cities of Abadan, Ahvaz and Khoramshahr.
The official, who asked not to be named, said the blaze may have been started on orders of the Iraqi president to "prevent his regimes’ opposition from hiding".
Iranian-based Iraqi opposition groups are known to be active in the area and with mounting US pressure on his regime, Saddam has allegedly stepped up operations against Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north.
The official said the fires, which have been burning for around a month, had led to a surge in respiratory problems and media reports yesterday said drivers in the area were forced to use their vehicle headlights in daylight.
"We have made films and reports and protested against their acts which violate environmental regulations. But Saddam does not pay attention to UN resolutions on disarmament, so how can we expect him to care about environmental matters," the official complained.
Reports in the Iranian media also pointed the finger at the Iraqi armed forces.
But an official from the Iranian-based Iraqi opposition group, Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), said he did not believe Baghdad was behind the blaze, at least not this time.
"The marshlands have been burned before by Saddam Hussein. But Saddam has also drained the marshes to force the population out, so they are very dry, and all indications point to the current fires being natural," SCIRI official Sami Mahdi told AFP.
"But we do know that there is a lot of tension in the area. Three weeks ago there were some clashes between locals and Iraqi troops just north of the intersection of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers," Mahdi said.
After decades of Iraqi government actions against the so-called Marsh Arabs, most of them have abandoned their traditional lifestyle in the marshes and now live in cities or as refugees in Iran.
