ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Four members of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) dissident group were killed in clashes with Iranian security forces in Iran’s Kurdish-majority western regions (Rojhelat), Tehran’s state and semi-official media reported on Monday.
The incident took place in the city of Baneh, northwest of Rojhelat’s Kurdistan province, the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting relayed in a post on X.
The semi-official Mehr News Agency cited Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi, spokesperson for the Iranian Law Enforcement Command as claiming that the four PJAK members were killed “in an armed clash” with Iranian security, after they had “attempted to enter the country.”
He further purported that “during the inspection of the vehicle and the site of the clash, significant quantities of weapons and ammunition were discovered, including several handguns, magazines, combat rounds, and hand grenades.”
Iran designates PJAK and several other Kurdish dissident groups as terrorist organizations.
PJAK in late June reported that fighting broke out after Iranian forces launched an operation near the city of Mahabad, in Rojhelat's West Azerbaijan province. Two days earlier, another clash near Baneh had killed two Iranian security personnel, according to Iranian media.
The latest incident comes as Iranian authorities have, in recent months, intensified military operations against Kurdish opposition groups both in Rojhelat and across the border in the Kurdistan Region.
The Norway-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said earlier this month that Tehran has carried out at least 50 missile and drone attacks on the headquarters and camps of Iranian Kurdish opposition parties in the Kurdistan Region since the Iran war ceasefire took effect in early April.
Meanwhile, the Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) said recent clashes between the IRGC and Kurdish opposition groups have killed fighters from both PJAK and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), underscoring the continued volatility along the Iran-Iraq border.
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