Officials: Renewed Iranian attacks in northern Iraq kill 1
By Samya Kullab?|?AP,
BAGHDAD — Missiles fired from Iran targeted bases of an exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition group in neighboring Iraq on Monday, killing one person and wounding eight, local officials said. It was the latest in a series of such attacks in recent weeks.
The casualty number from Iran’s salvo in the northern province of Sulimaniyah in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish-run region is expected to rise, said Saman Barzanji, the regional Kurdish Health Minister.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard confirmed the attack and said it had targeted the bases of “terrorist groups” by drones and missiles, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
A security official from the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, one of the exiled groups targeted on Monday, said they had suffered casualties but did not provide more details. The official was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity. The party has waged an insurgency against the Iranian government since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran stepped up attacks targeting Kurdish opposition groups exiled in northern Iraq in September accusing them of orchestrating ongoing anti-government protests that have swept Iran over the past two months.
Those protests first focused on ending Iran’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab, but have since transformed into calls to end the country’s clerical rule.
