Injured PDKI Peshmerga in Erbil explosion died on Friday

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – An Iranian Kurdish Peshmerga died on Friday after being severely injured in a remote-controlled car bomb explosion in Erbil on Thursday.

The blast took place in Erbil’s sub-district of Binaslawa, wounding Sabah Rahmani, 33, along with his father. Both of them are from Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhilat) and are Peshmerga for the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).

On Friday, the party announced that Rahmani had died after being heavily injured from Thursday’s bombing.

Rahmani was married and a father of two children, one of them merely two months old. Rahmani was with his father when the bomb went off.

He was a member of the PDKI since he was 18, according to the party statement. In the past, the PDKI has repeatedly accused the Iranian government of plotting to assassinate party members and leaders.

The PDKI is an Iranian Kurdish opposition party whose headquarters is in Erbil’s Koya city.

Founded in 1945 by the iconic Kurdish leader and President of the short-lived Kurdistan Republic, Qazi Muhammad, the PDKI, a secular and social democratic party, has for decades been fighting for Kurdish autonomy and rights in Iran.

The PDKI reignited a conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran in June 2016, decades after their silencing of weapons in 1996 for the sake of not jeopardizing Kurdish gains in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

On Dec. 20, 2016, two explosions targeted the PDK-Iran headquarters, another Iranian Kurdish opposition party, in the city of Koya in Erbil Province, killing five PDK-Iran members and one Kurdistan Region security member, and wounding four others.

Editing by Nadia Riva