Deputy provincial police commander Ebrahim Kazeminejad was quoted as confirming the toll from the attack on the patrol and passers-by in Sanandaj, the capital of the province bordering Iraq.
“At 5:10 pm two assailants from anti-revolutionary groups fired on a patrol and passers-by in Azadi Square of Sanandaj in which four policemen and a passer-by were martyred,” Kazeminejad said.
He said: “In this terrorist act also five policemen and four passers-by were wounded.”
Western Iran, which has a sizeable Kurdish population, has seen deadly clashes in recent years between security forces and Kurdish rebel groups operating from bases in neighbouring Iraq.
In early September, Iranian security forces killed four members of an outlawed leftist Kurdish group — Komala — in Kordestan.
The media reported that they had “entered the country for terrorist operations but were killed before they could do anything.”
In May, Iran hanged four Kurds, including a woman, after convicting them of membership in another outlawed Kurdish group, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).
