Iranian strikes hit Kurds in Iraq

IRANIAN officials yesterday said that the latest strikes on Kurdish opposition bases in northern Iraq were necessary to protect the country’s borders.

Kurdish officials have condemned the Iranian missile and drone attacks as unprovoked aggression.

Iran’s strikes late on Sunday killed a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, said Mohammed Nazif Qaderi, a senior official in the Kurdish Iranian group which is exiled in Iraq. The group said Iranian surface-to-surface missiles and drones hit its bases and adjacent refugee camps in Koya and Jejnikan. The group also asserted that the strikes had hit a hospital in Koya.

The Iranian strikes come in the wake of a visit to Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, last week by Iran’s Quds Force commander, Esmail Ghaani. During the visit, he threatened Iraq with a ground military operation in the country’s north if the Iraqi army does not fortify the countries’ shared border against Kurdish opposition groups, Iraqi and Kurdish officials said.

Some Kurdish groups have been engaged in a low-intensity conflict with the Tehran regime since the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, with many members seeking political exile in neighbouring Iraq.