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Iran's Revolutionary Guards kill 22 Kurd
PJAK rebels
5.9.2011 |
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September 5, 2011
TEHRAN, — Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards have killed 22 rebels of the
Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) in a new
offensive along the northwestern border with Iraqi
Kurdistan region, state television reported on
Monday.
"Twenty-two PJAK rebels were killed in the new
Guards operations in Sardasht Heights, and another
27 rebels have been wounded," the report said.
Guards operations officer Colonel Hamid Ahmadi said
the offensive launched on Friday would "continue
until all counter-revolutionaries, rebels and
terrorists have been cleared away."
Iranian media reported on Saturday that two Guards
had been killed on the first day of the offensive.
PJAK rebels have clashed repeatedly with Iranian
forces in recent |
A member of the Revolutionary Guard Colonel Hamid
Ahmadi speaks with journalists about military
operations against PJAK (Party for a Free Life in
Kurdistan) during a news conference in Tehran August
17, 2011 Photo: Reuters |
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years, drawing retaliatory bombing of
their rear-bases in mountainous border districts of
Iraqi Kurdistan.
Commanders said they had halted operations during
the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan to give the
rebels a chance to pull back from border areas but
they had failed to do so.
The Iranian bombardment of Iraqi Kurdistan’s border
areas had continued since more than 2 months,www.ekurd.netkilling and injuring many
Iraqi Kurdish civilians and causing
damage for dozens of houses and agricultural fields.
Human Rights Watch said on Friday that it had
evidence that Iran may have
deliberately targeted civilians in its offenisve
against the rebels.
Kurdish local officials and an NGO in early August
reported that more than 200 Iraqi Kurdish families
had been forced from their homes by weeks of Iranian
shelling of separatist rebel bases in northern Iraq.
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, AFP
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