Iran says it carried out 14 ground operations against opposition groups in Northern Iraq

An adviser to the commander-in-chief of the Iranian Army, said on Monday that special forces had carried out 14 ground operations targeting armed groups opposed to Iran’s government in the Sulaymaniyah and Erbil areas of northern Iraq.

According to the Iranian news website Entekhab, Mojtaba Jafari made the remarks during an event where he discussed the army’s activities while Iran was facing US and Israeli attacks.

Jafari said special commando units, known as the Green Berets, carried out 14 ground operations in the Sulaymaniyah and Erbil regions against bases used by armed opposition groups. He said the operations killed several fighters and captured others.

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He did not specify when the operations took place. There was no immediate comment from the Kurdistan Regional Government authorities in northern Iraq.

Jafari added that all participating forces returned to Iran without suffering any casualties.

Separately, Hassan Ghashghavi, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, said a ground attack launched from Kurdistan was part of plans by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 

In an interview with the Iranian Students News Network (SNN), Ghashghavi cited the book Israel’s Divine Mission Against Iran by Aaron Bernstein and the US National Security Strategy document, saying: “These two texts explicitly state that, to weaken Iran, it should be divided into smaller groups, and they specifically mention regions such as south-eastern and north-western Iran in this context.”

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