As protests rage on, Iran carries out strikes against Kurds in Iraq

The strikes targeted the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran in the Koysanjak district in Irbil, the Kurdish Komala Party in the village of Zarkwezela, in Sulaymaniyah province, and the Kurdistan Freedom Party in Kirkuk province.

The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran confirmed the deaths of two of its members, while the leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, Hussein Yazdanpanah, told Kurdish media his group had endured “heavy losses.”

One of the strikes hit a civilian area, close to an elementary school. Footage circulating on social media showed children screaming and running for shelter behind rocky outcroppings.

“It was a quiet morning until the sound of bombing shook our house,” said Salar Ali, a 47-year-old farmer from Koysanjak. He immediately rushed to the school, where he was reunited with his 10-year-old son.

“We are a quiet, peaceful village and we don’t deserve what is happening to us,” he said.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility for the attacks against what it called “bases operated by separatist terrorists,” and vowed to continue targeting Kurdish groups. The Iranian military, meanwhile, carried out artillery attacks for a fifth day on several areas bordering Irbil province. Those attacks have not resulted in any casualties.

But the strikes underscore the unease in the Iranian government over the protests that have rocked the country for nearly two weeks. They began after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, fell into a coma and died after being detained by the country’s “morality police.” Dozens of protesters have been killed and hundreds injured in the ensuing crackdown, according to rights groups.

The protests began in Iran’s predominantly Kurdish west, where Amini was from, and which shares a border with Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region. Iran’s exiled Kurdish parties have long based themselves in Iraq, and while they have voiced support for the protests in Iran, there is no indication they are directly connected to the unrest.

But analysts said the attacks were an attempt at deflection by Tehran, an effort to blame outside forces for a homegrown uprising. “What the Iranians want to say is that the unrest inside Iran is instigated by the political opposition parties [in Iraq],” said Hiwa Osman, a Kurdish political analyst based in Irbil. “But in reality it’s public dissent by the Iranians, inside Iran, against the Iranian regime.”

Iraq’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ahmed Al-Sahaf, said he would summon the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad to protest the violence, while the Kurdistan Regional Government condemned the attacks as “an incorrect behavior, a distortion of the course of events, and a source of astonishment.”

It was the first Iranian attack inside Iraq since March, when the Revolutionary Guard claimed a missile strike on an empty villa in Irbil owned by a Kurdish oil tycoon, who was apparently targeted for being involved in energy talks with Israel.

“The constant Iranian message in all of these attacks, starting from last year’s … is we can harm you, and America cannot protect you,” said Osman. “And the Kurdish authorities are only left with condemnation.”