Iranian gov't militiamen killed as IRGC, Kurdish group clash near western border
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Two Iranian government militiamen were killed late Wednesday during a clash with a Kurdish opposition group in western parts of Iran's Kurdistan province, media outlets affiliated with the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reported Thursday.
The Tasnim agency cited a statement from the IRGC’s Hamza Saiyid-al-Shohada command center as saying that the incident occurred in the Bulbar village of Hawraman district in Sarvabad county, located near Iran's western border with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
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The IRGC claimed further that two officers of the Basij organization—a paramilitary entity operating under the IRGC—, were targeted by “members of a terrorist group affiliated with global arrogance.” One of those killed was referred to as a district employee and the other was reported as a civilian.
“Global arrogance” is a blanket term commonly used by Iranian authorities to refer to the US, European states, and Israel.
According to the Fars news agency, another outlet with close ties to the IRGC, two individuals confirmed to be Basij militiamen were killed and another was wounded in the incident. The military command center also claimed that the militiamen were assisting locals with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
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As of Thursday evening, no group had yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Hengaw, a rights organization that documents such incidents, stated in its report that an unidentified Kurdish opposition group had been involved in the engagement, citing informed security sources. It also specified that two IRGC members were killed, that two others were wounded, and that there had been no casualties on the side of the opposition fighters who fled the scene shortly after.
Following the incident, IRGC commander in Kurdistan province Saiyid-Sadiq Hosseini promised “severe revenge” against the perpetrators.
Iran has repeatedly shelled western border areas to target suspected opposition fighters, often resulting in environmental damage. Cross-border operations have also killed dozens of members of Kurdish opposition groups and local civilians.
The latest armed exchange comes a day after Iranian authorities carried out the death sentences of two Kurdish political prisoners who were convicted of involvement in the bombing of a military parade a decade earlier, in a trial that rights groups have widely described as “unfair.”
Read More: Iran executes Kurdish political prisoners convicted in ‘unfair’ trial: Reports
Amid Iran’s ongoing high rates of the use of executions, Amnesty International said in a report published on Wednesday, “There has been an alarming escalation in use of the death penalty against protesters, dissidents and members of minority groups in Iran.”
In the first six months of 2020, around 24 percent of all those executed in Iran have been Kurds—defendants who were convicted on murder, drug trafficking, and political charges—, according to a Hengaw compilation of data on the issue.
Amnesty’s Diana Eltahawy said that the two Kurdish political prisoners executed on Tuesday “are the latest victims of Iran’s deeply flawed criminal justice system, which systematically relies on fabricated evidence including ‘confessions’ obtained under torture and other ill-treatment to secure criminal convictions.”
Editing by John J. Catherine