Iran has nearly doubled its intelligence gathering in Kurdistan Region, official says

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iranian intelligence agencies have boosted their collection of information and surveillance in the neighboring Kurdistan Region by nearly 70 percent, a top military official said Saturday. 

Commander of the ground troops of the elite revolutionary guards (Pasdaran) said the upsurge of surveillance was due to the “armed Kurdish groupings” based inside the Kurdistan Region who he said planned to harm the Islamic Republic.

“In the northeast [of Iran] and on the other side of the border, many consulates have been opened to revive the dead groupings and stir them against us,” Commander Muhammad Pakpour said in a news conference in Tehran on Saturday. 

Pakpour said the Iraqi government had “no control” over the northern parts of the country bordering Iran and that the Islamic Republic was “dealing with non-governmental elements.”

Tehran has in the past accused its regional rival Saudi Arabia of arming and funding Iranian Kurdish groups opposed to the Islamic Republic allegedly through its consulate in Erbil, something Kurdish officials have insistently rejected. 

After almost two decades of silenced guns, the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDP-I) announced last year that it planned to resume its armed campaign for self-determination in the country. Dozens of KDP-I Peshmerga fighters and revolutionary guards have been killed in on-and-off clashes since July last year.  

The KDP-I, which is based mainly in the Kurdistan Region, announced it will bring its fight closer to the Kurdish areas in Iran after years of non-violent movements outside Iranian Kurdistan.

The KDP-I has accused Tehran of masterminding the deadly bomb attacks that targeted its headquarters in Koya, Kurdistan Region in December killing 6 people and wounding 4 others. Iran has not commented on the allegations.

Pakpour also said the Pasdaran was “fully containing the terrorist elements on the other side of the border,” referring to Iranian Kurdish groups based inside the Kurdistan Region.