Responding to anti-Islamic Revolution groups' "evil moves," the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' (IRGC) Hamza Sayyid al-Shuhada Base said on Saturday, September 12 that it had targeted a base in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
The state-run Mehr news agency (MNA) cited the IRGC's deputy director of operations, Second Brigadier General Khalilzadeh, as saying, "The IRGC's recent operation was in response to 'counter-revolutionary evil' in carrying out an assassination attempt in Kurdistan Province."
Khalilzadeh did not elaborate on the details of the assassination.
In May, Base announced that an IRGC colonel and two other guards were killed during clashes between the IRGC forces and members of an unidentified armed group in Divandareh.
The IRGC forces killed in the clash in Iranian Kurdistan province were identified as the IRGC's Operations Deputy in the region, Colonel Shakiba Salimi, and two IRGC members, Ja'far Nezampour and Mohammad Shokri.
"During operations, launched in recent days, the base of an anti-Revolutionary group has been eliminated, and also, several terrorist cells were targeted which were deployed near the Turkish border to sow the seed of division," MNA cited Khalilzad as saying.
Furthermore, Khalilzadeh claimed that "several terrorist groups" stationed on the Iran-Turkey border "aimed to create division" were involved, though he stopped short of saying which groups were targeted in the Iraqi Kurdistan area and which regions were precisely hit.
Nonetheless, the Iranian provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and Kermanshah have historically been the scene of deadly clashes between the IRGC and dissident Kurdish groups, including the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran and "Free Life Party of Kurdistan", known as PJAK.
The Islamic Republic has repeatedly accused those Iranian Kurdish armed groups of "separatism," "terrorism," and having "contact with foreigners." The Kurdish groups, in turn, have accused the Islamic Republic of violating the rights of the Kurds in Iran, insisting that their goal is to pursue the rights of the minority Kurds.
