Iran says it has killed three ‘terrorists’, arrested one in Kurdish province

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards say that they have identified and killed three “terrorists” and arrested one in clashes Friday morning in the northwestern province of Kurdistan.

 

“A terrorist group who wanted to carry out terrorist acts and create instability inside the country,” were identified Friday morning, read a statement from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

 

It did not specify the name of the group but added that they have seized some weapons and ammunition in the clashes. 

 

The operation is part of a larger security operation that mainly concerns Iran’s northwestern and southern provinces on the heels of a deadly attack on the Iranian parliament earlier this month.

 

On Sunday, the Revolutionary Guards said that it targeted ISIS headquarters, command and control centers, and bomb-making factories with surface-to-surface missiles fired from sites in Kermanshah and Kurdistan provinces in northwestern Iran.

 

Iranian officials then stated that firing the missiles were a warning to all “terrorist groups” and their guardians. 

 

ISIS claimed responsibility for the Tehran attacks carried out by five gunmen, all Iranian citizens including some of Kurdish origin, that killed 18 and injured more than 50 people on June 7. The attacks targeted the parliament building and the shrine of the founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini.

 

The Revolutionary Guards initially accused Saudi Arabia of being behind the attacks, but Iran’s Intelligence Minister later said there was not enough evidence to prove that.  

 

Iran announced on June 11 that the mastermind of the Tehran attacks was killed outside of Iran in an Iranian-led operation in coordination with the intelligence of “a friendly foreign country,” Iran’s intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi said.