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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed on Wednesday to have killed two Kurdish opposition group fighters in a clash in west of the country in response to the assassination of a prominent local Guard member, as the IRGC launched a major operation near the Turkish border to clear the area of the remnants of the Kurdish opposition groups last week.
Khaled Shwani, a Kurdish member of an IRGC-attached paramilitary group known as the Basij, was gunned down in his vehicle in the city of Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan province on Monday, according to the Hamza Sayyid al-Shuhada command center of the IRGC, responsible for parts of the Kurdish areas of Iran.
Forces tracked down the members of the “treacherous Democrats” responsible for his assassination to a village near Sardasht on Tuesday, where a clash ensued, the command center’s statement today.
“During the clash, the two terrorists responsible for the killing of the Basiji Khaled Shwani were killed and the third person who was their contact to get them out of the country was wounded and detained,” the Guard statement said.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran (KDP-Iran), an opposition group based in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, confirmed in a Wednesday statement that a clash took place in the village of Qalarash, near Sardasht.
Graphic: Sarkawt Mohammed | Rudaw English, Maps4news
Two of its active members "were martyred and a resident of the village was badly wounded in the attack,” the KDP-I statement said.
Hasan Qaderzadeh, a spokesperson for the KDP-Iran, told Rudaw English their forces were not responsible for the Basiji’s assassination. He did, however, claim that Shwani was gunned down by “revolutionaries in Rojhelat,” in reference to those fighting in Kurdish areas of Iran.
“Our people take revenge on mercenaries…working for the state and against our people,” he said.
Tuesday’s clashes are the latest in a series of deadly confrontations between the IRGC and Kurdish opposition groups in western Iran.
Three Kurdish IRGC members were shot in early July in Piranshahr, while a June 24 clash in Chaldoran, West Azerbaijan saw one opposition fighter killed, two wounded and a fourth captured.
In response to these incidents, the Guard launched a major operation on "August 21" in Maku, near the Turkish border, to clear the area of Kurdish opposition groups.
“The security of the border areas of the country is very important to us and we will stand against any move that endangers the security of the borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” head of the IRGC's ground forces Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour said on Wednesday.
Fighting in Kurdish areas of the country has been a domestic thorn in the side of Iran, contending with tense foreign relations over its use of nuclear energy and its backing of proxy groups in the Middle East.
Tehran is concerned that regional and international adversaries, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US, are encouraging Kurdish opposition groups to cause instability in Kurdish areas.
Kurdish groups say that while they support the US pressure on Iran, they are not foreign policy pawns and are fighting for their rights in the country.
Zhelwan Z. Wali contributed to this report.
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