Iran strikes dissident sites in Iraq Kurdistan, two dead - officials

A Kurdish peshmerga fighter affiliated with the Iranian Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-Iran) stands guard on a building following an Iranian cross-border attack in the town of Koye (Koysinjaq), 100Km east of Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq on October 1, 2022. [Photo by SAFIN HAMED/AFP via Getty Images]

At least two people were killed and 10 were wounded on Monday, when rockets and drones hit the headquarters of Iranian Kurdish parties in the autonomous Kurdish region of neighbouring Iraq, local officials and security sources said, Reuters reports.

Iran’s semi-official Fars news said the country’s Revolutionary Guards had attacked the bases of “terrorist groups” in the Kurdish region of Iraq with missiles and drones.

Local officials and security sources said the attacks had struck targets near Erbil and Sulaimaniya. A hospital official in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Koye told Reuters that two people were killed and at least 10 wounded in the attacks.

The Revolutionary Guards have attacked Iranian Kurdish militant opposition bases in Iraq’s Kurdish region since the death of Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, on 16 September triggered nationwide unrest.

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Iran has accused Iraq-based Kurdish militants of fomenting the unrest and threatened strikes against armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents. In an attack by the Guards in September, 13 people were killed and 58 were wounded near Erbil and Sulaimaniya.

Kurdish security sources said drones struck two bases of Iranian Kurdish dissidents near Erbil and Sulaimaniya, adding that two people were killed and several were wounded in rocket attacks on Koye.

A media and public relation official with the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), an exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition party, told Reuters two of its fighters were killed in attacks on four of its offices. The PDKI’s headquarters in Koye was one of the offices attacked, he said.

An Iranian Kurdish rights group said on Twitter the Guards struck a base of the Komala Party in Sulaimaniya with six drones and a base of the DPKI near Erbil with four missiles.

In September, Iran’s Guards issued a statement saying such operations would continue as long as the bases of “terrorist groups” were not removed and as long as regional authorities “do not act according to their commitments”.

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