IRBIL: Iran launched cross-border raids against Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq overnight, killing at least one fighter, a week after similar assaults on forces accused of inciting unrest in Iran.
Two months of protests in Iran have been spurred by the death of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, who died in detention days after being arrested by morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
According to Ali Boudaghi, a representative of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), “a member of the peshmerga was killed in an Iranian strike on the area of Koysinjaq,” also known as Koya.
The Iraqi Kurdistan counter-terrorism bureau had previously stated that Iran’s “Revolutionary Guard Corps have again bombarded Iranian Kurdish groups” late Sunday, without citing casualties.
The PDKI claimed that Iran had targeted them with rockets and suicide drones in Koya and Jejnikan, near Irbil, Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital.
“These indiscriminate attacks are taking place at a time when Iran’s terrorist dictatorship is powerless to put a halt to the continuous rallies in (Iranian) Kurdistan,” the PDKI, Iran’s oldest Kurdish party, said.
Komala, an Iranian Kurdish nationalist party, said strikes had also attacked its facilities in northern Iraq.
“The Islamic Regime struck our headquarters again tonight.” “We’ve been meticulously prepared for these types of attacks and have no losses at the time,” the company claimed on Twitter.
The US Central Command, which supervises US military operations in the Middle East, called the Iranian strikes in Irbil “illegal.”
“We strongly condemn Iran’s cross-border missile and unmanned aerial vehicle strikes this evening,” Centcom commander General Michael Kurilla said in a statement.
“Such indiscriminate and illegal assaults endanger civilians, undermine Iraqi sovereignty, and jeopardize Iraq’s and the Middle East’s hard-won security and stability.”
Early Monday, the Iraqi state news agency INA reported on the attacks, alluding to “Iranian missile and drone strikes” on “three Iranian opposition parties in (Iraqi) Kurdistan.”
The new Iranian strikes come just one day after Turkiye conducted air raids against outlawed Kurdish insurgents in Iraqi Kurdistan and northern Syria.
The Turkish offensive targeted Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) camps, which Ankara blames for an explosion in central Istanbul a week ago that killed six people and injured 81 more.
For decades, the PKK has conducted a violent struggle in Turkiye and has been branded a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western backers. It has denied being involved in the Istanbul bombing.
The new Iranian strikes came less than a week after Tehran carried out similar cross-border attacks that killed at least one person.
Tehran accuses Kurdish-Iranian opposition groups in northern Iraq of inciting domestic “riots,” and has increased its attacks since the protests began.
In late September, Iran initiated attacks in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, killing more than a dozen people.
Iraqi Kurdistan is home to various Iranian Kurdish rebel groups that have previously conducted violent insurgency against Tehran.
Their operations have slowed in recent years, but the new surge of protests in Iran has heightened tensions.
Source: AFP
