I collected a few strike forces by flying through Serco space. On my way back to Daneb, at least two of them followed me into Itani space. Strangely enough, the Itani station guards didn't go after them (HELLLOOOO? Itani player chased by evil serco empire?! Help please!). After a few seconds the serco force decided its time to go home and they insta-warped back to Serco space (3k away from the WH).

you can get strike forces to tail you even in 'unalligned' space... but they don't go away after a while.

They'll follow you into enemy territory, but they should give up and turn home once they're sure you're out of their space. I'll double-check this. Yes, they also currently have the "warp from anywhere" flag set for testing purposes, I'll disable that so that they can only leave via valid warp zones.

I would love to see defbots fight at the Itani/Serco border. It would be awesome if you could send Itani attack forces into Serco space from time to time. The defbots beat each other up, and any player that comes their way. Right now its rather quiet for a war zone.

If you disable "warp from anywhere", can you outrun the bots and loose them by making two sequential jumps in empty space? Or do they know where you have gone?

You can already do that. If you jump into enemy space and then immediatly continue to an empty sector no bots will find you.