In Iraq’s Mountains, Iranian Opposition Fighters Feel the Squeeze
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Kurds are an ethnic minority in both Iran and Iraq. But in Iraq, they wield far more power, governing an entire semiautonomous region in the north of the country created with the help of a U.S.-led no-fly zone in the 1990s. Almost all of the Iranian opposition groups based there consider an independent Kurdish state an unattainable dream for now, and call instead for self-rule for the Kurdish regions within Iran.
The Kurdistan regional government in Iraq — which walks a tightrope between supporting Kurdish solidarity and inflaming Iraq’s powerful neighbor — bars the fighters from moving across the border into Iran.
On Monday, an Iranian commander warned specific villages, towns and neighborhoods in the Iraqi Kurdistan region that they would be targeted next for harboring opposition figures.
If Iran were to target civilian areas, it would be a significant escalation of attacks that have so far been directed mainly at the bases of the Iranian opposition groups. Missile and drone attacks on those bases at the end of September killed at least 18 people, including two women and a child, according to the opposition groups and hospital officials.