ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday announced it had struck three positions belonging to Kurdish Iranian opposition groups early morning and warned that any move against the country would be met with force.
“The positions of separatist groups in the Iraqi region were hit at three points by the IRGC's missile unit at 4:30 this morning,” the IRGC said in a statement.
The announcement comes amid reports about a CIA plan to arm and support Iranian Kurdish opposition parties based in the Kurdistan Region to launch ground operations into predominantly Kurdish western Iran, known as Rojhelat, to fight the Islamic republic. Earlier this week, United States President Donald Trump spoke by phone with several Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish leaders. Several of the opposition groups categorically rejected those claims on Wednesday.
In its Saturday statement, the IRGC warned that “if separatist groups in the region make any move against Iran's territorial integrity, we will crush them.”
Tehran has struck bases belonging to Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in the Kurdistan Region several times since the US and Israel began their operation against Iran last week.
Before the outbreak of the war in February, five Iranian Kurdish opposition parties announced the formation of the coalition with the stated goal of unifying efforts against the Islamic republic and advancing Kurdish self-determination. The Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan also joined the alliance on Wednesday after initially holding off.
The Kurdistan Region has repeatedly reaffirmed that it will not side with any party in the US-Israel war against Iran and will not allow any group to use its territory as a launchpad for attacks against neighboring countries.
Despite this, the Region has come under numerous attacks by Iran and its allied Iraqi armed groups, who claim they are targeting US positions.
On Friday, debris from a drone that had been intercepted struck a hotel in northwestern Erbil, while another drone was shot down over Sulaimani province earlier Saturday. No civilian casualties were reported in either incident.