TEHRAN -- At least two terrorists were killed and 10 others wounded on Monday when rockets and drones hit their headquarters of in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of neighboring Iraq, local officials and security sources said.
Local officials and security sources said the strikes by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had struck targets near Erbil and Sulaimaniya.
The IRGC said the operation came “pursuant to continued inaction and some evident oversights, which were sometimes intentional, by officials of the northern Iraqi region in dealing with the activities of counterrevolutionary and anti-Iran terrorist and separatist groups that have carved out a safe haven in the region to hatch plots and conduct attacks against the Iranian nation.”
The IRGC has hit terrorist bases in Iraq’s Kurdish region for fomenting riots in Iran. In an operation by the IRGC in September against those bases, 13 people were killed and 58 were wounded near Erbil and Sulaimaniya.
Kurdish security sources said drones struck two bases of terrorists near Erbil and Sulaimaniya, adding that two were killed and several were wounded in rocket attacks on Koye.
A media and public relation official with the anti-Iran PDKI terrorist group was quoted by Reuters as saying that two of its members were killed in attacks on four of its offices. The PDKI’s headquarters in Koye was one of the offices attacked, he said.
Another Kurdish group said on Twitter the IRGC struck a base of the Komala Party in Sulaimaniya with six drones and a base of the DPKI near Erbil with four missiles.
The IRGC urged Iraq’s central government as well as the Iraqi Kurdistan Region to fulfill their commitments toward the Islamic Republic in line with the principle of good neighborly relations and make the two countries’ common borders secure.
“In this way, further damage to the people of the two countries and disruption of calm and security as a result of the presence of terrorists in the region will be prevented.”
In September, the IRGC issued a statement saying such operations would continue as long as the bases of “terrorist groups” were not removed and as long as regional authorities “do not act according to their commitments.”
The commander of the IRGC’s Hamzeh Seyed al-Shohada Base said security forces have arrested more than 100 elements of separatist groups and terrorists who had a role in the recent riots in Iran.
Brigadier General Muhammad Taqi Osanlou said Iran’s northwestern borders are generally secure but the enemy has managed in a few cases to sneak weapons
through the frontiers to stoke riots in Iran.
“Our demand concerning establishment of border security must be accommodated by the central government in Iraq. Our request is not only limited to the domestic security of the Islamic Republic of Iran but also includes the security of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and Iraq. The anti-Iran terror groups operating in the Kurdish region or elsewhere in Iraq are considered a threat to the security of those areas as well. We have had discussions with officials from both the Baghdad government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over the matter,” the general said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani also said, “Iran will not remain silent in the face of threats to its territorial security, especially those being posed by separatist groups to border areas, and will defend its security.”