Iranian border guards killed in clashes with armed group

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Two Iranian border guards were killed following clashes with an armed opposition group in Kurdistan province, state media reported on Wednesday.

The clashes occurred near Baneh city in western Kurdistan province as the armed group attempted to cross into Iran through Baneh and Paveh, IRNA reported. 

The armed group “was destroyed and a significant amount of weapons and ammunition were seized,” it added.

There are several armed Iranian Kurdish groups with bases in the Kurdistan Region. None have claimed involvement in the reported clash.

Iran has previously argued that Kurdish opposition groups are destabilizing Tehran.

In recent years the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has taken increasingly proactive measures to smother clandestine Kurdish opposition groups by making thousands of kilometers of new dirt roads atop mountain peaks overlooking Kurdish areas, installing thousands of additional troops to seal off its porous western border with Iraq. In 2018, after several lethal clashes between Iranian forces and Kurdish groups, Iran fired ballistic missiles at the headquarters of two Kurdish opposition groups in the town of Koya, more than 100 km deep into the Kurdistan Region. 

The body of a senior official from an Iranian Kurdish opposition party was found dead in Erbil with signs of torture. 

A senior Bayt al-Muqaddas commander was ambushed in May 2020. It was blamed on the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), guerrillas affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting Turkish security forces since the early 1980s.