IRGC say they killed Kurdish fighters in northwest Iran

IRGC say they killed Kurdish fighters in northwest Iran Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said they had killed five members of the banned Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) in the country’s northwest, state media reported on Thursday. The IRGC said the group was ambushed after entering Iranian territory in mountainous border areas near Piranshahr in West Azerbaijan province, without specifying when the operation took place. According to the Norway-based Kurdish rights group Hengaw, the fighting took place on Wednesday evening. The PDKI has been involved in decades of intermittent conflict with Iran, and Kurdish armed groups in Iran have long been viewed by Tehran as separatist threats. A similar incident near Piranshahr was reported by state media on Tuesday, with the IRGC saying they had killed six members of what they described as an "opposition and separatist group". On the same day, state media also reported that two members of the IRGC were killed and two wounded in a shooting in Kermanshah province in western Iran that occurred on Monday evening. The attack was claimed by a newly formed Kurdish armed group seeking retaliation for the IRGC’s role in suppressing a 2022 to 2023 protest movement, according to Hengaw.