New Clashes between PDKI Peshmerga and IRGC

Following heavy clashes between PDKI’s Peshmerga Forces and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in several villages in the vicinity of the city of Shno (Oshnaviah) on June 15 and 16, clashes also erupted in the city of Piranshar on June 16.

The Operational Command of PDKI’s Peshmerga Forces stated that the Peshmergas were ambushed by the IRGC in the Sarokani region of Piranshar on June 16.

The Peshmergas managed to break the Iranian ambush without any casualties. The battle lasted for one hour.

So far, there is no information regarding Iranian casualties in this recent clash. However, the Operational Command of the Peshmerga Forces has released the names of 5 of at least 12 IRGC soldiers that were killed in the clashes on June 15. Their names are as follows: IRGC Colonel Haji Samad, IRGC soldier Yosef Ahmedi, IRGC soldier Mustafa Khalidi, Basiji member Obeyid Herki and IRGC soldier Askandar Mamal.

Since May of 2015 PDKI’s Peshmerga Forces returned to their bases in the border area between southern (Iraqi) and Eastern (Iranian) Kurdistan. In 1993, PDKI left the Qandil Mountains and moved its bases into the heartland of southern Kurdistan in order to prevent Iranian aggression against this part of Kurdistan, which was in its early stages of self-rule.

On the occasion of Newroz, the Kurdish New Year, Mustafa Hijri, the leader of PDKI, announced that henceforth PDKI will send Peshmergas and political cadres to eastern Kurdistan in order to facilitate closer interactions with the Kurdish people.

“Our objective,” Hijri said, “is to interlock the struggle [of Peshmerga] in the mountains with the struggle [of the Kurdish people] in the cities.”

Recently, Mohammad Salih Ghaderi, PDKI’s representative to Hawler (Erbil), stated to Kurdish media outlets in South Kurdistan that the recent clashes were initiated by the IRGC against the Peshmergas.

Ghaderi said that the PDKI Peshmergas and cadres were on political missions and came under attack by the Iranian forces.

Following the establishment of the theocracy in Iran, which the PDKI and other secular and democratic Kurdish organizations opposed, a war broke out between the Islamist regime and the Kurdish movement that lasted from 1979 to the mid-1990s.