Kurdish opposition fighters, Iran’s IRGC troops killed in fresh clashes

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Tuesday clashed with fighters of a Kurdish opposition group in western parts of the country, amid a general uptick in armed exchanges in recent weeks. The latest incident reportedly resulted in casualties on both sides.

The exchange occurred at 2:40 p.m. in rural Marivan (Mariwan) county of Iran’s Kurdistan province, IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency reported, citing a statement from the media center of the Guards’ Hamza Sayyid al-Shuhada Base.

The statement said that IRGC troops, in a “joint operation” with the Kurdistan province office of the federal intelligence ministry (Ettela’at), “clashed with an eight-member anti-revolutionary group.”

The report claimed the military killed two fighters and wounded four others, and that the Guards were “in pursuit” of the remainder of the small team.

Meanwhile, a report from Kurdish rights watchdog Hengaw – which documents such incidents – said the clash broke out near the villages of Rasha Deh and Duwaysa in Mariwan between an unidentified Kurdish opposition group and IRGC units. The area is close to Iran’s border with the Kurdistan Region.

Hengaw also cited an informed source as saying that one IRGC member had been killed in the confrontation. It added that Iranian artillery shelled the surrounding region, supposedly targeting the fleeing members of the Kurdish fighters.

Such bombardments have repeatedly caused large fires in the mountain areas, causing material damages and, at times, burning crops of residents of nearby villages.

No armed entity has claimed involvement in the exchange. The political wings of such groups have long been advocating human and political rights for the Kurdish people residing in the western part of Iran. Tehran, however, considers them “terrorists.”

The Kurdish fighters remain active in rural, mountainous areas near the border with the Kurdistan Region. They often carry out operations against border guards – who routinely shoot and kill Kurdish mountain couriers, rights groups report – and IRGC bases in the countryside of the Kurdish regions of Iran (Rojhilat).

In one incident on Sunday, Kurdish armed group Zagros Falcons, which is affiliated with the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), struck an IRGC base in Urmia country of West Azerbaijan province. Three Iranian forces were wounded, with one of them in critical condition, Hengaw reported then.

Following a deadly attack by a Kurdish group in early May about 80 kilometers northeast of Mariwan, Kurdistan province, IRGC commander Saeed-Sadiq Husseini threatened “serious responses,” IRGC-affiliate media Tasnim reported last week.

On Monday, Hengaw also reported IRGC surveillance drone sightings in the mountainous areas of Qandil and Halgurd in the Kurdistan Region, where groups from Rojhilat have bases Iran has previously shelled.

July 2019 witnessed a notable increase in clashes between Kurdish groups and Iranian forces, but a large IRGC response precipitated a significant decline in activities over the past year. Still, sporadic incidents have taken place across different parts of Rojhilat since then, with a notable increase in clashes starting in early May.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany