October 08, 2021
The Iranian military has been bombing and shelling Iraqi Kurdistan since September 9 in an effort to suppress Kurdish rebels from Iran who have operated for decades from sanctuary inside the Kurdish area of Iraq.
Military commanders have threatened every few days to send ground troops into Iraqi Kurdistan to wipe out the rebel lairs, but so far have not done so. In past years, the Islamic Republic has periodically sent ground troops across the border, so such an invasion cannot be ruled out now. But, so far, the Iranian military has not gone beyond words.
The main groups in the region are the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), which dates back to before the Islamic revolution, the Party of Free Life (PJAK), which is the Iranian subdivision of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), a decades-old rebel group fighting for Turkish Kurds in Turkey, and Komala, an Iranian Communist Kurdish group.
The Islamic Republic has not named the group or groups it is after, but the KDPI appears to be the primary concern.
The KDPI has said that none of its people have been injured or killed in the shelling, Katyusha rocket firings and drone attacks because they have kept on the move and cannot be pinpointed by Iran. The Iran Times has not seen any comment from the other two groups.
The Islamic Republic has frequently shelled the groups since the 1980s and has on a few occasions launched ground attacks across the border. The Islamic Republic also has assassins inside the region who have reportedly killed hundreds of rebels in individual attacks. The latest report was of the death in August in an Erbil hotel room of Musa Babakhani of the KDPI. (A few days later, the KDPI said it had killed an Iranian intelligence agent, Khidir Pirotipenah, it said had assassinated a number of Kurdish activists.)
In the single most deadly attack, the Islamic Republic sent a drone into the headquarters of the KDPI in September 2018 while its central committee was meeting in Erbil. The group admitted that 15 members were killed in the attack, which not only hit the building, but the room where the central committee was meeting.
The Iranian military has not just warned the Iranian Kurdish rebels. They have also directly warned the government of Iraqi Kurdistan to be prepared for an Iranian invasion if the Iraqi Kurds don’t silence the Iranian Kurds. The Iraqi Kurds have remained silent and largely ignored the threats. However, it is believed the Iraqi Kurdish government has tried to sit on the Iranian Kurdish rebels and stop their cross-border raids.
The Voice of America quoted Kawa Bahrami, a senior commander of KDPI troops along the border, as saying in late September that the Iranian artillery shelling and rocket and drone attacks were being launched almost every day. He claimed that no troops or civilians had been killed or even injured, though he charged that major damage had been done to a number of farms.
Bahrami said that in the first four days of the Iranian attacks, the Islamic Republic sent 16 drones against KDPI targets and claimed the KDPI shot down four of those drones.
The latest round of attacks began while Iraqi Prime Minister Mostafa Kazemi was in Tehran on an official visit, a diplomatic insult to him. Baghdad, however, has remained mum and issued no official comment on the ongoing attacks, which suggests it plans to avoid involvement.
The Iranian military has also demanded that the United States end its operations at the Al-Harir Air Base near Erbil, where Iran insists the US is assisting the rebels by hosting meetings of the rebels.