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Iran claims killing 30 Kurdish PJAK rebels
4.9.2011 |
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September 4, 2011
TEHRAN,— Iran said its troops killed or
wounded 30 Iranian Kurdish rebels in a fresh assault
on the mountainous border with Iraqi Kurdistan
region where witnesses reported fierce fighting and
shelling on Saturday.
A commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the
military push was launched after giving the rebels a
one-month “grace period” during Ramadan to withdraw
from the area from where they have launched ambushes
and sabotage attacks on gas pipelines.
“The Revolutionary Guards forces have killed or
injured 30 members of the PJAK (Party of Free Life
of Kurdistan) terrorist group since Friday afternoon
to now,” Colonel Hamid Ahmadi told the official IRNA
news agency. |
Iran has begun a new military push against Kurdish
PJAK rebels on the border with Iraqi Kurdistan
region. Photo: ANF |
One Turkish air strike
killed seven Kurd civilians late last
month and on Saturday Iranian soldiers
shot
dead a Kurdish shepherd outside the
border town of Haj Omran, according to the town’s
mayor, Maghdid Ahmed.
Iranian shelling during a campaign against Kurdish PJAK rebels killed damaged farms and houses in north
Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region,
local officials said.
Hundreds of Iraqi Kurds have fled their homes in the
area to small camps since mid-July.
Human Rights Watch has
charged that
Iran may be deliberately targeting civilians in its
campaign against the rebels.
Witnesses and local officials reported fighting in
the Qandil mountains and shelling around the Iraqi
Kurdish village of Sone.
Managing the PKK presence is a tricky task for
Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan government with
Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, and to the
south a fragile,www.ekurd.netpower-sharing
central Iraqi government with whom the Kurds still
disagree about territorial and oil rights.
The PKK has previously said it believes Turkey and
Iran are coordinating their attacks in the Iraqi
Kurdistan region and that it would
join
forces with the Iranian offshoot to
better counter the assaults.
A PKK spokesman confirmed that would happen.
“After realising that the Iranian forces are not
only targeting the PJAK party but targeting all
Kurds and their achievements, for this reason we
announce that from now on we will start fighting the
Iranian forces side-by-side with PJAK fighters,”
Dozdar Hamo told Reuters
“From now on we will start to cooperate directly to
support the PJAK and together defend the
achievements of the Kurdish people.”
The PJAK, or the (Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane), is a militant Kurdish
nationalist group based in Kurdistan region in
Iraq's north that has been carrying out attacks
Iranian forces in the Kurdistan Province of Iran
(Eastern Kurdistan) and other Kurdish-inhabited
areas.
Since
2004 the PJAK took up arms for self-rule in Kurdistan province northwestern of
Iran (Iranian Kurdistan, Eastern Kurdistan). Half the members of PJAK
are women. The PJAK has about 3,000 armed
militiamen.
Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey all have significant
ethnic Kurdish minorities. Estimate to 12 million
Kurds live in Iran.
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency, Reuters
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