Iranian Guards again strike Kurdish groups in Iraq

ARBIL: Iran launched new cross-border missile and drone strikes overnight against Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq, killing at least one fighter from the groups it accuses of stoking a wave of protests.

The Islamic republic has been shaken by over two months of demonstrations sparked by the death of Kurdish-iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, after her arrest for allegedly breaching the strict dress code for women.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has repeatedly struck the Kurdish dissident groups based in Iraq’s mountainous north, whom it labels “separatist anti-iranian terrorist groups”.

The Guards charged the Kurdish groups are being supported by “the global arrogance”, code for archfoe the United States and its allies, and said it had targeted their “headquarters and conspiracy centres”.

The IRGC said it had hit the Kurdish camps of Jejnikan and Zarguiz and the town of Koysinjaq, adding that “the terrorists were struck and suffered heavy casualties”.

In northern Iraq, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) said Iran had targeted it with missiles and suicide drones in Koya and Jejnikan, near Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Party official Ali Boudaghi said that “a member of the peshmerga was killed in an Iranian strike” on the area of Koya.

“These indiscriminate attacks are occurring at a time when the terrorist regime of Iran is unable to stop the ongoing demonstrations in (Iranian) Kurdistan,” said the PDKI, the oldest Kurdish party in Iran.

The Iranian Kurdish nationalist group Komala said it was also targeted.