Border guard killed in NW Iran
An Iranian border guard was killed in clashes with Iraq-based Kurdish militants in northwest Iran, the Fars News Agency reported on Sunday.
The clashes took place near a border checkpoint about 11km from the Iranian city of Piranshahr early Sunday, during which one of the assailants was killed and the rest fled back into the Iraqi territory.
“According to the report, Second Lieutenant Seyyed Mohammad Hashemi attained martyrdom and private Kasra Abdolalizadeh got hit in the foot and sustained debilitating injury,” Press TV reported.
Clashes erupt between Iranian border guards and terrorists in the country’s northwest, resulting in the death of two policemen.
Earlier this month, Iran officially protested to the Iraqi Kurdistan’s authorities following a number of attempts by terror groups based in the semiautonomous region to enter the country and carry out attacks.
There has been a visible rise in the assaults after the reported death of a Kurdish militant commander in northern Iraq on March 6.
The protest came after Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) dismantled three terrorist groups in separate operations in a space of one week.
Two Iranian border guards were killed on June 5 during clashes with armed bandits near the border city of Sardasht.
Tehran hands over a note of protest to officials in the Iraqi Kurdistan region over recent terrorist activities in border areas.
The bandits are often based in a mountainous terrain from which they carry out their hit-and-run attacks.
The Turkish military has recently ramped up airstrikes in northern Iraq targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) bases in Qandil, close to the Iraq-iran border, where high-ranking members of the militant group are thought to be located.
The government has also said Turkish troops have deployed roughly 30km (nearly 20 miles) inside northern Iraq, not far from Qandil.
Turkish Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said this month that Ankara had offered to Iran to carry out the operation together. Tehran apparently did not enlist after Iraq said it would not accept any Turkish operation on its territory.