IRGC confirms rocket attacks on Kurds in Iraq

by WorldTribune Staff, September 9, 2018

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched rocket attacks on a Kurdish rebel group in Iraq which killed at least 11 people.

Footage posted online showed rockets lifting off from inside Iran.

“In a successful operation, the Guards’ aerospace unit, along with the army’s drone unit…targeted a criminal group’s meeting and a terrorist training center with seven short-range surface-to-surface missiles,” the IRGC said in a statement released on Sept. 9.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) said that its organization was holding a meeting at the time of the attack on Sept. 8.

“Eleven KDPI members were killed and 30 wounded by Katyusha rockets fired on their headquarters in Koysinjaq,” Kamran Abbas, director of the city’s hospital, told AFP.

The KDPI, made up of ethnic Kurds from Iran, occasionally carries out attacks inside Iran from its bases in Iraq. Teheran lists the KDPI as a terrorist organization.

The Western-backed Kurdistan regional government in Iraq condemned the attack, saying it violated Kurdish law and territorial integrity

“We reiterate our rejection of using the Kurdistan region’s land to attack neighboring states, which is in no way acceptable and can lead to instability in the Kurdistan region,” it said in a statement.

Millions of ethnic Kurds live in the mountainous region along the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. Some have ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey, which has for decades fought for an independent homeland.


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