Kurdish fighters kill 3 elite Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards: reports
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, 2017. Photo: ANF/Iran media
PIRANSHAHR, Iranian Kurdistan,— Three members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards were shot dead in the western city of Piranshahr in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat) on Tuesday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, citing a Guards statement.
The three died “when terrorists opened fire on their car at the entrance to Piranshahr…”, the statement said.
Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency has reported that Kurdish militants have killed three members of the elite Revolutionary Guard.
It gave no further details. There are frequent clashes in the region between the Islamic Republic’s security forces and Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan Region, as well with the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).
Since 2004 the PJAK (Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane) took up arms to establish a semi-autonomous Kurdish regional entities or Kurdish federal states in Iran, similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. The PJAK has more than 3,000 armed militiamen, half the members of PJAK are women.
PJAK, one of the most active Kurdish group in Iranian Kurdistan, is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation (Koma Civaken Kurdistan or KCK), which is an alliance of Kurdish groups and divisions led by an elected Executive Council.
Earlier in July Iran’s Guards kill two Kurdish PJAK fighters in Iranian Kurdistan, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
The Mehr news agency said armed members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party KDPI also wounded a Guard member after they opened fire on a Guard vehicle in an ambush in a village near the Iran-Iraq border town of Piranshahr.
It said authorities are investigating the shooting.
The area has seen occasional fighting between Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists.
Ever since its emergence in 1979 the Islamic regime imposed discriminatory rules and laws against the Kurds in all social, political and economic fields.
Iran’s Kurdish minority live mainly in the west and north-west of the country. They experience discrimination in the enjoyment of their religious, economic and cultural rights.
Parents are banned from registering their babies with certain Kurdish names, and religious minorities that are mainly or partially Kurdish are targeted by measures designed to stigmatize and isolate them.
Kurds are also discriminated against in their access to employment, adequate housing and political rights, and so suffer entrenched poverty, which has further marginalized them.
Kurdish human rights defenders, community activists, and journalists often face arbitrary arrest and prosecution. Others – including some political activists – suffer torture, grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts and, in some cases, the death penalty.
(With files from Reuters | AP | Agencies)
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