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Six dead in Iran Kurdish region attacks
linked to PKK
27.7.2005
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TEHRAN, July 27 (AFP)
- 18h09 - Six people, including four Iranian
soldiers, were killed in unrest near the Turkish
border, officials said Wednesday, with the interior
ministry blaming Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK).
"Four soldiers were killed and five others wounded
yesterday (Tuesday) night in an ambush," near the
northwestern town of Oshnoviyeh, said provincial
deputy governor Abbas Khorshidi.
At the same time Tuesday, Khorshidi said "unknown
gunmen opened fire on several patrols" in a separate
incident.
A civilian woman died after being caught in the
crossfire and the body of one of the assailants had
been recovered, Khorshidi added.
"The attack was probably carried out by the Pejak,
Party for a Free Life in Iranian Kurdistan," he
said.
"The Pejak has appeared over the last year or two in
northern Iranian areas with a strong Kurdish
community."
Unconfirmed rumours have linked the relatively
unknown Pejak group to the outlawed Turkish Kurdish
party the PKK.
Earlier Wednesday, the Iranian interior ministry
blamed the PKK for the ambush, saying three Iranian
soldiers died in the attack.
"It was terrorists from the PKK who carried out the
ambush," ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani
said, adding that the Iranian soldiers who died were
"martyred."
The spokesman gave no further details of the attack
and did not elaborate on why the PKK was held
responsible rather than Iran-oriented Kurdish rebel
groups such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of
Iran and Komaleh.
Branded a terrorist organization by the United
States and the European Union, the PKK has fought
Ankara since 1984 and recently stepped up violence
in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast after calling
off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June last
year.
In the past, Ankara has accused Tehran of turning a
blind eye to PKK activity on the border.
Tehran and Ankara are linked by an accord calling on
Iran to fight the PKK and for Turkey to fight the
People's Mujahedeen, an armed Iranian opposition
group based in Iraq.
But Kurdish regions in Iran have seen unrest and
agitation lately.
Khorshidi believes the tensions could be linked to
recent events in the nearby Kurdish city of Mahabad
where a young Kurdish man, who was wanted by police,
was shot and killed during his arrest in July,
police said.
Subsequent clashes between residents and police
killed one policeman and resulted in dozens of
arrests.
Images of Astom's swollen and bloodied body
circulated on the Internet, fueling rumours that he
had been tortured and exacerbating discontent among
the Kurdish population.
Officials denied the allegations of torture.
The clashes have since calmed down and "the
situation in Mahabad has completely returned to
normal," prefect Seyed Maruf Samadi said.
Khorshidi told Iran's student news agency, ISNA,
that many towns in the region have seen "short-term
agitation" in recent days.
"If regional security is upset and there is
disorder, we will act very strongly against
troublemakers," he warned.
Mahabad is located in northwestern Iran's West
Azerbaijan province, and was established in 1946 as
the first and only Kurdish state in history.
However, the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad was
defeated later the same year.
Iranian authorities are particularly wary of ethnic
strife or potential revenge attacks, and not only in
Kurdish areas. Some seven percent of Iran's
population is Kurdish.
Ahvaz, a restive ethnic Arab majority city close to
the Iraqi border and capital of oil-rich Khuzestan
province, saw new clashes in recent days, judicial
officials were quoted as saying in Wednesday's
press.
Riots were reportedly sparked by con men who had
taken advance payments on cheap cars and appliances
and then failed to come up with the goods.
According to Ahvaz's deputy prosecutor Said Saadi,
12 rioters and 18 embezzlement suspects were
arrested.
Ahvaz and the province also saw several days of
fighting in April between its Arab population and
security forces. Officials said five people were
killed and hundreds arrested. It was also struck on
June 12 by four bomb attacks that killed between six
and eight people.
AFP
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