(Reuters) Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards used drones and missiles to strike headquarters of a Kurdish militant group near Iran’s border with neighbouring Iraq’s Kurdistan region, the Iranian semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Friday.
“A large number of terrorists were killed and wounded in the attacks that had started from Wednesday to target terrorist headquarters and their training camps,” said the agency, citing a statement from the elite Guards.
A report from Tasnim in Arabic and a tweet in English from Iran’s Press TV described the strikes as taking place on the Iraqi side of the border. However, the full statement in Farsi said only that the strikes had taken place along the border.
The statement said the strikes were launched in retaliation for recent attacks by the group that killed at least five members of the Guards in northwest and western Iran.
“The Iraqi Kurdistan government is expected to take Iran’s warnings seriously and not allow terrorists to use its territory as a shelter to train, organise and endanger Iran’s sustainable security by carrying out terrorist attacks,” the statement said.
“The Guards … will respond harshly to any aggression against Iran’s security.”
There are frequent clashes in the area between Iranian security forces and Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in neighbouring Iraq, such as the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), accused by Tehran of having links to Kurdish PKK insurgents in Turkey.
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