10 IRGC Members Killed in Terrorist Attack

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said in a statement Saturday that ten of its members have been killed in a terrorist attack on a border post in western Kurdistan Province .

“In last night’s attack by anti-revolutionary terrorists, affiliated to global arrogant powers, on the border post of the IRGC’s  Hamzeh Seyed al-Shohada Base in the village of Dari in Marivan District in Kurdistan Province, and subsequently the explosion at an ammunition depot, 10 fighters of Islam were martyred,” the IRGC public relations office said.    

In the clash with the terrorists, a number of terrorists were also killed while others suffered injuries and escaped, the statement said, Tasnim News Agency reported.

  Deadly Revenge

The IRGC emphasized that “a crushing revenge” awaits the terrorist and anti-revolutionary groups and their supporters for committing such brutal crimes.

As per law, the IRGC is responsible for protecting the  northwestern and southeastern border regions.

It was the largest number of Iranian troops killed in a single attack on the Iraqi border in recent years, though the area has seen occasional fighting between Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists as well as militants linked to the Islamic State (Daesh) terrorist group.

Provincial security official Hosein Khosheqbal told state TV that 11 members of the Guards’  Basij forces were killed in the overnight violence in the Marivan area, which he blamed on the banned Kurdish opposition group PJAK.

“The latest reports indicate that the Basij and Guard forces are in hot pursuit of the attackers,” Khosheqbal said.

The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) – an outlawed group that seeks self-governance for Iran’s Kurds and has links to Turkey’s militant Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK)–operates in the border areas, along with other armed Kurdish groups based in northern Iraq.

  PJAK Claims Responsibility

IRNA reported that PJAK claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack near in the Marivan border region.

Earlier this month, the Guard said they had killed three militants in a security operation near the border with Iraq, and nine militants were reported killed by the Guard last month further north on the border.

There is little coordination between Iranian and Iraqi forces over security of the porous border that has been used by Daesh to enter Iran.

Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said on Tuesday that security forces in the southwest arrested four suspected Daesh operatives who were planning attacks.