Anti-aircraft batteries down one fighter jet after Islamic republic bombed an Iranian opposition base in the Iraqi desert

Gulf News, April 5, 2017 – Iranian planes bombed an Iranian opposition base in the Iraqi desert on their first raid into Iraq since a 1988 ceasefire. Anti-aircraft batteries shot down one plane and the exiled Iranian Mujahideen Khalq said it captured two crewmen. The Mujahideen showed foreign journalists bomb damage at Ashraf base, about 100km from Baghdad and the same distance from the border with Iran, and the still-burning wreckage of the downed F-4 Phantom, its wings holed by bullets.
Officers of the Mujahideen’s National Liberation Army (NLA) said a dozen Iranian F-4 Phantoms and F-5s attacked in six waves dropping cluster bombs, firing rockets and strafing roads and vehicles. The Mujahideen said the Phantom’s pilot and navigator were captured after ejecting from their plane, which smashed into an irrigation channel embankment 15km from the base.