AFP: A Kurdish rebel group based in northern Iraq threatened on Sunday to launch bomb attacks inside Iran if Tehran fails to halt anti-Kurdish policies in the Islamic country. MOUNT QANDIL, Iraq (AFP) A Kurdish rebel group based in northern Iraq threatened on Sunday to launch bomb attacks inside Iran if Tehran fails to halt anti-Kurdish policies in the Islamic country.
Pejak (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan) warned it has the ability to “carry out bombings against Iranian forces” inside Iran.
Ronahi Ahmed, a member of Pejak’s political bureau, told AFP from the group’s hideout in Qandil mountain in northern Iraq that the rebels were ready for a long fight with Tehran.
“We can’t stand handcuffed when Iran is chasing us on daily basis. We have the ability to confront Iran inside Tehran. We are not accepting any threat from anybody,” she said.
“We don’t accept the religious suppression that is being carried out by the Iranians. We totally reject it.”
Ahmed said the group had recently attacked Iranian forces across the border.
“Last month our people were able to infiltrate Mahkook town in northwest Iran. They killed dozens of Iranian soldiers. In another incident in Iran’s Miryuwan town our guerrillas killed six soldiers,” she said.
“Iran should be aware that we have a long arm that can strike at significant places inside Iran, especially in the northwest reaching Tehran.”
The Iranian military often shells Iraqi border villages in an attempt to flush out Kurdish guerrillas, sending residents fleeing from their homes.
Pejak is an anti-Iranian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish rebel movement fighting to carve out an independent state in southeastern Turkey since 1984 in a conflict that has killed more than 37,000 people.
The PKK and Ankara’s troops fought fierce battles in March inside Iraq after Turkey launched a ground offensive.
“If they (Iran) continue to follow the policy of (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, then the battle will be more severe and the region where we are staying will be hit by a war,” Ahmed said.
Tehran alleges that Washington supports Pejak in its fight against Iran, but Ahmed denied the allegation.
“We have no relations with the Americans and Iran’s claim that we have an alliance with America is not true. America does not back or fund us. We depend on supplies from our own people,” she said.
Ahmed’s statement comes as mystery still surrounds an explosion in a mosque in Iran’s southern city of Shiraz on Saturday that killed 11 people and wounded at least 191.
Some officials insist the blast was accidental, but others said it could have been caused by a bomb.
