Revolutionary Guard says it targeted 'separatist groups' in Iraq's Kurdistan

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard said Saturday it had targeted Iranian "separatist groups" in Iraq's Kurdistan region, on the eighth day of the war against Israel and the United States. An official from an exiled opposition group in Kurdistan confirmed to AFP that drones had struck positions belonging to three Iranian Kurdish parties, without causing any casualties.

The Revolutionary Guard, the ideological army of Iran's Islamic Republic, said in a statement that "three sites belonging to separatist groups in the [Kurdistan] region of Iraq were struck" in the morning. "If separatist groups in the (Kurdistan) region undertake any action against Iran's territorial integrity, we will crush them," the statement added, as reported by Tasnim news agency.

The autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan is a rear base for several Iranian Kurdish rebel groups, which in the past have already been targeted by cross-border strikes from Iran, which accuses them of serving Western or Israeli interests. The Kurds, considered one of the largest stateless peoples in the world, form one of the main non-Persian minorities in Iran.

The Iraqi government and the government of the autonomous Kurdistan region said Friday that Iraq must not be used as a base to launch attacks against neighboring countries, amid reports that Kurdish fighters might be crossing the border into Iran.

Iran threatened Friday to target "all the facilities" in Iraq's Kurdistan region if Kurdish fighters managed to enter its territory. The commander of the Iraqi border guards, Mohammed Sukar, said Saturday that the border between Iraq and Iran was secure and that there had been no attempts to infiltrate Iran, according to the Iraqi News Agency (INA).