SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Four bases belonging to the Kurdish opposition parties were destroyed in operations against the groups on the border areas, an Iranian commander said on Monday.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) used “smart weapons” to attack the bases on the border in northwestern Iran, deputy commander of IRGC’s Hamzeh Seyyed al-Shuhada Majid Arjmundafar said, according to semi-official news agency Tasnim.
The Iranian commander accused the Kurdish opposition parties of reorganizing themselves with “support from other countries to damage the IRGC”.
“We consider places where these groups are as enemy territory, and we consider it our duty to carry out operations against them,” he continued.
On Sunday, Iranian armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri said the IRGC would continue to attack the armed Kurdish groups based in the Kurdistan Region.
“Our operation against opposition groups will continue and we will not tolerate any mischief within these borders,” Bagheri said, calling on Baghdad and Erbil to deal with them.
On Sept. 9, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bombarded several villages on the Kurdistan Region’s border areas with Iran.
There were no casualties in the bombardments that continued for three days.
The bombardments came after commander of the IRGC ground force Mohammad Pakpour called on the Region’s people to stay away from bases used by the opposition parties on the border areas.
On Sept. 12, secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council Ali Shamkhani asked Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi who paid a visit to Tehran to expel the Kurdish opposition parties from the country.
Shamkhani considered “increasing movements of terrorist groups in the Iraqi Kurdistan region as a matter of threat to the security of the two countries’ borders,” state news agency IRNA cited him as saying.
He urged “the immediate disarmament and expulsion of those groups from Iraq,” IRNA reported.
Iran accuses the Kurdish armed groups based on the Kurdistan Region’s border areas of disrupting its security.
There are frequent clashes along Iran’s border with the Kurdistan Region between Iranian security forces and Kurdish armed groups such as the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).
