TEHRAN -- Iran’s Islamic
Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday destroyed positions of terrorist groups operating near the country’s western borders in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
According to a statement published by Sepah News, the IRGC’s Ground Force launched the attack on Wednesday morning. It did not elaborate on the type of the attack, but Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported earlier that the terrorist bastions had been targeted by artillery fire.
The IRGC earlier said its ground forces had arrested all five members of a terrorist team planning to carry out mischievous activities on Iran’s soil. It said they were arrested in Baneh city of Iran’s Kordestan province.
Confessions made by the detained terrorists led to the IRGC’s attack on the positions of the terrorists on Wednesday morning, the statement added.
Iraq’s foreign ministry said the shelling targeted some locations in the Sidekan area near the Iranian border, around 60 miles (100 km) northeast of Erbil.
Iran has on countless occasions warned Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region that it would not tolerate the presence and activity of terrorist groups along its northwestern borders, saying the country would give a decisive response should those areas become a hub of anti-Islamic Republic terrorists.
Back in September last year, the IRGC launched an attack in northern Iraq, where it destroyed four bases belonging to groups acting against Iran’s national security.
In March, the IRGC fired a dozen ballistic missiles that hit a secret Mossad base on the Masif-Saladin Street in Erbil. The attack reportedly killed and injured several Israeli operatives.
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations has written to the UN secretary-general and the head of the Security Council, saying Tehran “reserves its inherent right to self-defense, under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, to respond to such criminal act whenever it deems appropriate.”
Last month, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi warned that the armed forces would not let the occupying regime of Israel rest if it took action targeting the Islamic Republic.
His comments come days after he warned the Iraqi Kurdistan against using its territory for activities that disrupt Iran’s security.