Iranian jets have carried out airstrikes in Iraq against Islamic State militants in recent days, U.S. officials and independent analysts say, underscoring the strange alliances generated by the war against the extremist group that has beheaded Americans and blown up rivals' holy sites. Washington and Tehran are locked in tough negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. But at the same time, the two adversaries have been fighting parallel campaigns on the same side in Iraq to defend the Shiite-dominated government — and the region's Kurds — from IS militants who have seized large sections of Iraq and Syria. It has long been known that Iranian troops and advisers have been fighting alongside Iraqi forces against Islamic State militants, but until this week there had been no confirmation of Iranian air activity. The timing and nature of the strikes are not clear, but U.S. officials say some involved American-made F-4 Phantoms, twin-engine fighter bombers that were sold to Iran's U.S.-backed shah in the 1970s, and were last produced by McDonnell Aircraft Corp. in 1981. Qatari-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera filmed a jet flying over Iraq Nov. 30th that was identified by Jane's Defence Weekly as an Iranian Phantom. Read more http://www.chron.com/news/politics/...hes-airstrikes-in-Iraq-against-IS-5932656.php
