Saturday , 20 April 2024

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards strike dissident sites in Iraq: Report

Al-Arabia – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards struck militant targets in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq with missiles and drones, the state news agency IRNA said on Wednesday.

A senior member of Komala, an Iranian Kurdish opposition party, told Reuters that several of their offices were struck on Wednesday morning. He said there had been casualties and material damage but he did not have details.

Tehran has blamed armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents for involvement in unrest in the country, particularly in the northwest where most of Iran’s 10 million Kurds live.

The Revolutionary Guards said after the attacks that they would continue targeting what it called terrorists in the region.

“This operation will continue with our full determination until the threat is effectively repelled, terrorist groups’ bases are dismantled, and the authorities of the Kurdish region assume their obligations and responsibilities,” the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement read on state TV.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two dominant parties in northern Iraq, condemned the Iranian bombing of Iraqi Kurdistan areas, the Iraq news agency reported.

Protests erupted in Iran this month over the death of a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody.

Amini, 22, from the northwestern Kurdish city of Saqez, was arrested on September 13 in Tehran for “unsuitable attire” by the morality police who enforce the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.

She died three days later in hospital after falling into a coma, sparking the first big show of opposition on Iran’s streets since authorities crushed protests against a rise in gasoline prices in 2019.

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