Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
one Iranian Kurdish Iraqi separatist group says it has launched attack on Iranian paramilitary forces revolutionary guard It was retaliation for Tehran’s violent crackdown on protests in recent days.
Members of the Kurdistan National Army, the armed wing of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), “have played a role in the protests through financial support and armed action to protect protesters when needed,” PAK representative Jwansher Rafati told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Iranian media has previously accused the group and other Kurdish factions of attacking security forces.
Iranian activists say the government’s crackdown on a recent wave of nationwide protests has left more than 2,797 people dead.
A small number of Iranian Kurdish dissident or separatist groups – some with armed factions – have long found safe haven in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, and their presence has been a point of friction between the central government in Baghdad and the Iraqi government. Tehran.
Iran has occasionally launched attacks on the groups’ bases in Iraq, but has not done so since the recent protests erupted.
The PAK is the first group to claim armed action since the protests and crackdown began.
“When we discovered that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards fired directly at protesters, our fighters in Ilam, Kermanshah and Firuzku responded with armed operations and caused significant damage to regime forces,” Rafati said in an interview in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has also claimed multiple attacks online and posted videos of purported operations against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets, sometimes accompanied by grainy footage showing gunfire, explosions and buildings on fire. The Associated Press could not confirm the extent of the damage or the impact of the attack.
Rafati said the attacks were carried out by members of the group’s Kurdistan National Army military wing based in Iran. He added that the group had not sent any troops from Iraq but expected Iran might attack Pakistan’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps bases in Iraq in retaliation for its actions.
He said Pakistan’s Islamic Party has been providing support to dozens of Iranians who have fled to Iraq’s Kurdish region since the crackdown on protests.
sensitive political situation
PAK’s claims could put Iraqi authorities in a sensitive position with Tehran – which has significant influence over its neighbor – over the group’s continued presence in northern Iraq.
Iraq reached a deal with Iran in 2023 to disarm Iranian Kurdish dissident groups and move them from bases near the border area to designated camps in Baghdad. Bases have been closed and movement in Iraq has been restricted, but the groups remain active.
During last year’s Israel-Iran war, the PAK and other Kurdish dissident groups began organizing politically in case Tehran lost power, but did not launch armed action.
A PAK spokesman told The Associated Press at the time that premature mobilization could jeopardize the fragile security of Kurdish groups and the Kurdish region along the border with Iraq and Iran.
Ten years ago, Pakistani troops received training from U.S. troops as they fought against the Islamic State militant group as it swept through Iraq and Syria, seizing large swathes of territory.
Ironically, Pakistan’s Hizbul Islami Party then found itself allied with the Iranian-backed Shiite Iraqi militias that were also fighting the Islamic State.
At the time, PAK received funding from Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government, but now says most of its funding comes from Iranian supporters and expatriates.
Iran accuses Kurdish group
During the recent protests, Iranian state media repeatedly referred to demonstrators as “terrorists” and claimed that they were supported by the United States and Israel, but provided no evidence to support this claim.
Iranian state television broadcast a surveillance video showing a group of men wearing baggy trousers common among Kurds opening fire in Iran’s western Kurdish region. It also released images of weapons seized in the area.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency, which has close ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said Kurdish groups including PAK “played an active role in fomenting these movements by issuing coordinated statements and messages”. “Groups based in northern Iraq have moved beyond the psychological warfare and media operations phase and into the field phase,” the report said.
The semi-official Fars News Agency, which also has close ties with the Revolutionary Guards, reported on January 10 that another organization, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), killed eight Revolutionary Guards members in Kermanshah and that a PJAK sniper killed a policeman in Ilam province. The PJAK has not claimed any armed action during the protests.
———
Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. Sewell reported from Beirut.