Protest-Hit Iran Intensifies Crackdown in Kurdish Area, Security Forces Kill 12 People Within 24 Hours

Protest-Hit Iran Intensifies Crackdown in Kurdish Area, Security Forces Kill 12 People Within 24 Hours
Iran conducted additional drone and cross-border missile attacks against Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq, killing at least one fighter from the groups it holds responsible for inciting a wave of protests. AFP via Getty Images

Iran has been devastated by more than two months of protests that began when Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, died after being detained for allegedly breaking the tight dress code for women.

Iran once more attacked Iranian Kurdish opposition groups headquartered in Iraq with lethal missile and drone attacks throughout the night and into Monday, which it blames for inciting discontent inside the Islamic republic.

Iran Launches More Attacks Against Kurdish Groups

In the hilly northern part of Iraq, where two of the factions claimed their bases had been attacked in the most recent round of aircraft raids, one Kurdish peshmerga fighter was reported dead. Iran has been rocked by more than two months of demonstrations that began when Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, died after being detained for allegedly breaking the tight dress code for women.

Per Hindustan Times, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which it refers to as "separatist anti-Iranian terrorist groups," has regularly attacked Kurdish dissident organizations based in Iraq. In Koya and Jejnikan, close to Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, one of the parties, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), claimed to have been attacked with missiles and suicide drones.

According to a rights group, security forces in west Iran's Kurdish-populated cities have killed at least 30 anti-government protestors in the previous week. Seven people have perished since Sunday in Javanroud alone, according to Hengaw, as a result of the Revolutionary Guards' ferocious crackdown with heavy weaponry.

The funerals for two protestors on Monday grew into a large gathering. A protester is heard in one video claiming that the Revolutionary Guards are shooting machine guns at people's heads. A girl has apparently been shot in the head, according to the video, which has also been confirmed by BBC Persian. It also appears to show individuals covered in blood laying on a roadway. Additionally, automatic gunfire is audible.

Iran Crackdown Sparks More Protests

Jalal Mahmoudzadeh, a local councilman, reported that at least 11 people had died there in the previous week. Every one of these funerals has evolved into a large-scale protest against the religious establishment.

Security personnel have responded by removing a number of demonstrators' bodies and secretly interring them without the consent of their loved ones. The protests that began in the Kurdish area of Iran two months ago quickly swept throughout the country.

Analysts have remarked that state brutality has only served to incite more protests. One of the most significant non-Persian ethnic minority groups in Iran is the Kurdish population, who typically follow Sunni Islam rather than Shiism, which dominates the nation.

According to regional police chief General Mohammad Ghanbari, two policemen were shot and wounded by "criminals" on Monday in the hamlet of Zahedan in the Sistan-Baluchistan province's southeast. The most recent Iranian attacks happened a day after Turkish airstrikes against militant Kurdish groups operating illegally in northern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, as per News18 via MSN.

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