ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A captain in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in the Qandil mountain range along the Iran-Iraq border on Saturday, according to a local news outlet affiliated with the Guards, amid heightened tensions between Iranian forces and Kurdish opposition groups operating in the border region.
Captain Sina Ahmadi was killed on Saturday, Fateh Urmia reported, without providing details about the circumstances of his death. The IRGC has not publicly disclosed how he was killed, but the outlet referred to him only as a "martyr."
The IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency also reported his death.
Ahmadi appeared to be from Khoy, a city in Iran's northwestern West Azerbaijan province, according to messages of condolences shared on social media.
Several Iranian Kurdish opposition groups operate in the mountainous border region between Iran and the Kurdistan Region, where they have periodically clashed with the IRGC and other Iranian security forces.
The reported death comes as the IRGC has intensified military operations against the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish opposition group, in the Shaho mountain range in western Iran.
Iranian forces have deployed explosive-laden drones and heavy artillery to the mountainous area over the past three days, targeting PJAK positions in an apparent effort to dislodge the group's fighters.
The Shaho range stretches across parts of Iran's western Kermanshah and Kurdistan provinces, in the Hawraman region.
PJAK maintains mobile armed units in the Kurdish areas of western Iran and has been involved in a long-running conflict with Iranian security forces.
On Sunday, IRGC forces also targeted mountainous and forested areas near Marivan in Kurdistan province, according to the Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
The attacks continued despite a warning from PJAK's armed wing, the Eastern Kurdistan Units (YRK), which said on Saturday that it would exercise its "legitimate right to self-defense" if Iranian attacks persisted.
The latest violence comes amid Iran's ongoing war with the US and repeated Iranian drone and missile strikes against Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region.
