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Iran army accuses Israel of using bases in northern Iraq

October 4, 2022 at 12:00 pm

Israeli soldiers seen during a combat exercise, at an Israeli Army base in Tel Aviv, on 20 August 2019 [JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images]

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards accused Israel of “using anti-Revolutionary Guard bases in the northern region of Iraq to its advantage,” explaining that it struck 40 targets in this area during a recent bombing campaign.

On Saturday and Sunday, the Revolutionary Guard said it launched artillery shelling on the headquarters of separatists in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guard Ground Force, Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour, said: “Separatist elements in Komala and Demkarat have taken steps against our country in the past years, and sent teams to carry out terrorist activities inside our country, but most of these teams were identified and destroyed after they entered the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In addition, since 2016, these separatist groups began to establish operating bases and training centres in the northern region of Iraq.”

He continued: “Due to the above-mentioned actions, we regularly expressed our protest to the officials in the northern region of Iraq in the form of a memorandum, and every year they were told that the purpose and goal of these separatist elements is the division of Iran. A neighbouring country of Iran cannot host separatist and terrorist elements whose aim is to split the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

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The commander added, “We have always referred these issues to the authorities of the northern region of Iraq and protested, but they suggested every time that we integrate their bases, because ‘the security of the Islamic Republic of Iran is our security.’ Of course, these statements were just words, and no action was taken. Instead, their activities against our country increased every year compared to the previous year, and the separatist elements increased the number of their bases in northern Iraq.”

“According to some of the information available to us, it seems that there is no will to deal with these terrorist elements on the part of the regional authorities, and about a month and a half ago, the Ministry of Security arrested a terrorist group that planned to sabotage the Isfahan’s nuclear facilities. In their confessions, they mentioned the Zionist occupation’s presence in the terrorist groups’ bases in the northern region of Iraq, and that it chose people and took them to Israel, and after providing the necessary training, they were sent to these bases to carry out acts of terrorism inside Iran. Therefore, these bases can also be considered the bases of the Zionist enemy, because these bases work for it.”

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