Iran's Revolutionary Guard launches attacks on Iraqi Kurdish region

ANKARA

Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched attacks on the Kurdish region of northern Iraq targeting armed rebel groups, Iranian state media reported Wednesday.

The headquarters of the Komala Party, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (IKDP) and the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) were hit with missiles and drones, Iranian state television reported.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency confirmed the attacks.

Abdullah Mohtadi, secretary general of the Komala Party, said on his social media account that their headquarters in Sulaymaniyah were attacked by Iranian army drones.

Meanwhile, Hussein Yazdanpanah, the head of PAK, told reporters that their headquarters in Koysanca district in Erbil and Kirkuk's Altınkopru district came under attack.

Casualties were reported in Altinkopru, said Yazdanpanah.

The Revolutionary Guard said it carried out an artillery attack last week on terrorist group headquarters in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

In a statement, the IRGC said its ground forces targeted the positions of Komala Party, accusing it of smuggling weapons into Iran.

The attacks come amid nationwide protests in the wake of the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman in police custody last week, who was arrested for not wearing the hijab properly.

Mahsa Amini, an ethnic Kurd, belonged to a section of Iran with a large Kurdish population where protests have grown louder over the past week.

Iran has long accused rebel groups based in northern Iraq of carrying out destabilizing activities in the border region, where the majority of Iranian Kurds live.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz