ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iranian Kurdish shopkeepers on Wednesday began Rojhilat-wide (Iranian Kurdistan) strike against the executions of Kurdish activists and the bombing of opposition parties in Koya in the neighboring Kurdistan Region.

Over the weekend six Kurdish political prisoners were executed, and, in a missile attack on the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDP-I) and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDK-I), at least 15 were killed and 42 injured.

Kurdish parties and Kurdish activists in Iran called for shop owners to strike in protest of the Iranian government’s actions. Protests are also expected to take place in Europe.

People of eastern (Iranian) #Kurdistan are staging a general strike today in response to #Iran’s missile attack against their political parties and the execution of Kurdish political prisoners. #Twitterkurds #Rojhelat #PDKI #KDPI pic.twitter.com/qwWoSzvOcN — PDKI (@PDKIenglish) September 12, 2018

“People in Kurdistan will stage a peaceful general strike to show the brutal Islamist regime in Iran that we will not accept more military attacks against our political parties and executions of our political activist,” Loghman H. Ahmedi, a senior member of the PDKI’s leadership, told Kurdistan 24.

“This regime is on its last leg. With a combination of peaceful demonstrations and general strikes, together with the resistance of the Peshmerga Forces, the Kurdish people will be at the forefront to bring about change in Iran. The only factor that is missing is international support to end the rule of this brutal theocratic regime,” he added. </s> TEHRAN: Iran executed three alleged Kurdish separatists on Saturday, local media reported, despite criticism by the United Nations that at least one had been tortured in prison. Ramin Hossein Panahi, Zaniar Moradi and Loghman Moradi were all executed on Saturday, according to the conservative Fars news agency. It said Panahi had planned to bomb a rally in Iran’s Kurdish province last June. Zaniar and Loghman Moradi were accused of membership in an unnamed “terrorist separatist group” and of killing four people, including the son of the Friday prayers leader in the Kurdish city of Mariwan. Panahi was accused of membership in Komala, which has been waging a long-running separatist insurgency in Iranian Kurdistan from bases across the border in Iraq. He was sentenced to death in April, drawing criticism from UN human rights experts, who said his execution “would be unconscionable”.“We are deeply disturbed by reports that Mr. Panahi has suffered human rights violations before and during his trial, including incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment, and denial of access to a lawyer and adequate medical care,” they said in a report at the time.They pointed to reports that Panahi had been denied medical care for injuries suffered during his imprisonment, including from reported beating with cables.He had also reportedly started a hunger strike at the beginning of this year in the Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj, near Tehran. </s> Iran's top military commander defended Saturday's strikes in the Koya area east of Erbil, Iraq, which killed at least 16 and injured several dozen others, citing Tehran's right to defend itself amid US "provocations."

Iraqi Kurdish officials and the PDKI had "made a written commitment not to conduct operations in Iran, but they have been breaking that promise over the past year due to US provocations," Armed Forces Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri said in a statement on Tuesday, according to PressTV.

Bagheri also urged Baghdad and the regional government in Iraqi Kurdistan to either extradite or deport the remnants of these Iranian Kurdish separatists, and warned that further "counter-measures" would be taken against commanders if the group's attacks on Iranian military and border forces persist.

"The officials of Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iraqi government should hand these criminals over to Iran. If they cannot do this, they should at least expel them and these groups from the country," he said, as quoted by Iran's IRIB broadcaster.

On Sunday, the IRGC issued a statement taking responsibility for the Erbil attack, justifying the strike by citing PDKI plans to carry out acts of sabotage in the provinces of West Azarbaijan, Kurdistan and Kermanshah. The missile strikes are believed to have wounded PDKI secretary general Mustafa Mawludi and his predecessor Khalid Azizi.

In a separate statement issued on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said the deaths of Iranian personnel "left the Iranian armed forces with no choice but to take a retaliatory and deterrent measure based on the credible information it had received" against the PDKI.

Iranian-Kurdish militant groups, most of them demanding autonomy or a separate Kurdish state, established bases in northern Iraq in the early 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War. The PDKI, an armed leftist Kurdish nationalist group, which Tehran characterizes as a terrorist group, waged a guerilla campaign against Tehran for decades before declaring a unilateral ceasefire with Tehran in 1996. Tehran accused the group of resuming its operations across the border from Iraq in 2016. </s> TEHRAN : Ten Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been killed by suspected Kurdish fighters in an attack on a post located on the Iraqi border, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency has reported.

The agency quoted a Revolutionary Guards' statement as saying that several of the attacking "terrorists" were also killed in the fighting in which a munitions depot was blown up, the latest deadly clash in an area where Kurdish armed opposition groups are active. The attack happened on Friday night in the village of Dari, in the Marivan district of the northwestern Kurdish region of Iran.

"The attack by the evil rebels and terrorists against a revolutionary border post and the explosion of a munitions depot caused the martyrdom of 10 fighters," the Guards' ground forces division said in the statement.

There was some confusion over the announcement, as the statement listed 11 names of "martyred" soldiers.

Provincial security official Hosein Khosheqbal told state television that 11 members of the Guards' voluntary Basij forces were killed in the overnight violence, which he blamed on the Kurdish armed opposition group the Party of Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK).

"The latest news is that the Basij and Guards forces are in hot pursuit of the attackers," Khosheqbal said.

PJAK, an outlawed group that seeks self-governance for Iran's Kurds and has links to Turkey's Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), operates in the border area, along with other armed Kurdish groups based in northern Iraq.

Earlier this month, the Revolutionary Guards said they had killed three fighters in a security operation near the border with Iraq, and nine fighters were reported killed by the Guards last month further north on the border. </s> DUBAI (Reuters) - Militants killed 10 Iranian Revolutionary Guards in an attack on a post on the Iraqi border on Saturday, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, the latest deadly clash in an area where armed opposition Kurdish groups are active.

The agency quoted a Revolutionary Guards statement as saying that several of the attacking “terrorists” were also killed in the fighting in which a munitions depot was blown up.

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

“The latest news is that the Basij and Guards 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 area, along with other armed Kurdish groups based in northern Iraq.

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

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

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

In June 2017, Islamic State militants carried out coordinated attacks at the parliament building in Tehran and the mausoleum of Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini south of the capital, killing at least 18 people.
Iranian Kurdish shopkeepers begin a region-wide strike against the executions of Kurdish activists and the bombing of opposition parties in Koya in the neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan Region.