Iran’s Guards launch artillery attack on militants in Iraqi Kurdistan
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched an artillery attack on Iranian militant opposition bases in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq on Saturday, Iranian state television reported.
“Headquarters of anti-Iranian terrorists” based in northern Iraq were targeted by the Guards, state TV said, in reference to Kurdish rebel groups based there.
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Iran has blamed armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents of involvement in ongoing unrest in the country, particularly in the northwest where most of Iran’s up to 10 million Kurds live.
“These operations … will continue in order to ensure viable border security, punish criminal terrorists and hold officials (of the Kurdish Regional Government) accountable towards international regulations and their legal duties,” the Guards said in a televised statement.
Iranian officials have often called on the KRG to curb the activities of Iranian Kurdish groups in the area. They also say Israeli agents are based in the region, which is denied by KRG.
Iran has repeatedly targeted Kurdish rebel groups in Iraq’s Kurdish region. There have been frequent clashes in the remote and mountainous border region between Iranian security forces and militant groups opposed to the Tehran government.
(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by David Clarke and Mike Harrison)