TEHRAN -- Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Major General Muhammad Baqeri Iran will keep up its defensive operations against U.S.- and Israeli-backed separatist terror groups holed up in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
The separatists, who are “backed by the U.S. and other enemies,” have been operating in the Iraqi Kurdistan region since the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, Gen. Baqeri said.
“Over the past several years, however, their bases have turned into a complex against our national security with American support,” he said, noting that “currently, there are 1200 military bases in northern Iraq” with 3000 armed terrorists operating against us.
The top commander said on several instances the Zionist regime has handpick a number of these terrorists, and trained them before dispatching them across the border to conduct terrorist and destabilizing activities.
“They were being used as terrorists for hire,” Baqeri said, pointing out that “in effect, these terrorist strongholds were Zionists bases,” and one of such bases in Erbil recently came under attack by the Aerospace Division of the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps (IRGC).
Iran, he said, has on countless occasions warned the Iraqi Kurdistan’s local authorities that it “will not tolerate the presence and bomb-making and military activities” of terrorist groups along its borders.
“These operations and even bigger ones will continue as long as it takes” to flush out and disarm the terrorists, he added.
Tehran has urged the Kurdish officials on many occasions to either disarm or expel the terror groups, General Baqeri said, adding that their failure has prompted Iran confront the outfits on its own as a self-defense measure.
The IRGC targeted the positions of the terrorist groups most recently earlier this month.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the top Iranian general said Iran continues to keep U.S. bases across Iraq “under surveillance.”
“We know where the American bases are located” across Iraq “as well as the number of forces in them and the nature of their activities”, he said.
Bagheri also said Tehran has notified its neighbors that “should any action be taken against our national security in any American bases in neighboring countries, Iran will surely retaliate against the headquarters.”
On Saturday, Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government must shoulder their full responsibility and counter terrorist and apartheid
groups based in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
“Given good relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Iraq, we do not expect the territory of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region to be a place for terrorist acts and threats against Iran,” Amir-Abdollahian said in a meeting with Iraqi National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji here.
He said Iran has always supported a developed, free and independent Iraq and prosperity for its government and nation.
Iran, however, “will not tolerate the continuation of the armed terrorists’ presence in the Kurdistan Region and their moves against Iran’s security,” the top diplomat emphasized.
Amir-Abdollahian noted that Tehran and Baghdad have growing strategic relations in all sectors and stressed the importance of improving bilateral cooperation in the security fields, including the battle against armed terrorists based in Iraq’s Kurdistan.
“We regard Iraq’s security as Iran’s security,” the foreign minister added.
Al-Araji, in Tehran at the head of a high-ranking security delegation, said the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government would definitely counter any measure against Iran’s security.