“On Saturday morning, the IRGC ground forces targeted the positions of the counter-revolutionary terrorist groups on the other side of the northwestern borders of our country, inflicting heavy losses and casualties on them,” according to a statement from the
Hamza Sayyid al-Shuhada Headquarters of the IRGC's Ground Forces, reports state media agency IRNA.
The report did not specify which neighboring country artillery fire was sent into, but Iranian security forces regularly clash with units of Kurdish opposition groups and arms smugglers in the west of the country and across the border into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Western Azerbaijan province, where the offensive is said to have been launched from, shares borders with Iraq, Turkey, as well as an autonomous region of Azerbaijan. “Counter-revolutionary” elements or terrorists groups are terms often used to describe Kurdish armed opposition groups, which operate in the border regions.
Three members of Iran's border guards were killed and two others injured in a clash with an armed group near Urmia, also in Western Azerbaijan province, on Friday, IRGC-affiliated Tasnim new agency reported.
Saturday’s offensive took place the same day Iraqi Minister of Defense Juma Inad arrived in Tehran at the invitation of his Iranian counterpart. At a meeting with Brigadier-General Amir Hatami, the minister of defense said they are “ready to meet the needs of the Iraqi armed forces to strengthen Iraq's defense power,” reported IRNA.
In recent years Iranian forces have taken increasingly proactive measures to smother clandestine Kurdish opposition groups by creating thousands of kilometers of new dirt roads atop mountain peaks overlooking Kurdish areas, and deploying thousands of additional troops to seal off its porous western border with Iraq.
Iran's border guard chief announced in September that drones and sensors would be deployed to a 1,000 kilometre stretch of border with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, as part of a "smart" border defence plan to better seal the country's frontiers.
Several exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition groups have based themselves in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, including the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).
