21 Kurdish rebels, 2 Iranian guards killed in clashes in northwestern Iran

21 Kurdish rebels, 2 Iranian guards killed in clashes in northwestern Iran

2011-07-28 03:34:54 GMT+7 (ICT)

TEHRAN (BNO NEWS) -- At least 21 members of the separatist Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) were killed in an operation by Iranian security forces in northwestern Iran, Press TV reported on Wednesday.

At least two members of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) were also killed and two others were injured during the clash that took place in Jasosan and Alotan heights in Sardasht. According to the report, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and PJAK have laid mines in Sardasht heights near Iran's border with Iraq.

The IRGC has been fighting the PJAK rebel group over the past weeks in order to establish security and stabilize the area. According to officials, more than 50 militants have been killed, 100 others injured, and a number of them have been captured.

Iraqi media reported on July 18 that some 30 Iranian soldiers were killed during fierce clashes with PJAK militants on the Iraqi border. The number could not be independently confirmed, but PJAK also claimed that a large number of Iranian soldiers were killed.

Meanwhile, a military official of IRGC's Hamzeh Seyyed al-Shohada base said on Wednesday that the Islamic Republic will continue its operations against the PJAK until the forces of Iraq's central government are deployed to the Iran-Iraq border areas.

"By deploying the security and military forces of the central government or the Kurdistan region to the joint border of Iran and Iraq's Kurdistan, Iraq's government must accept the responsibility of guarding common borders," the military official said.

"Under pressure from this terrorist group, Iraqi people have been deprived of their rights to live and use the land and resources near the borderline," the official added.

The IRGC has deployed 5,000 military forces in the northwest of the country along its common border with Iraq's Kurdistan.

Iran regularly shells areas in Iraq to target the PJAK, which is fighting to establish semiautonomous regional entities or Kurdish federal states in Iran, Turkey and Syria. The group has been accused of carrying out a number of attacks in those countries.

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