Revolutionary Guards battle Kurdish insurgents in Iran

BAGHDAD — Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is battling armed members of an insurgent Kurdish group, leading to fatalities.

A report Thursday by Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency quotes Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, the chief of the Guard’s ground forces, as saying the clashes happened Wednesday near Oshnavieh, a predominantly Kurdish town in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province near its border with Iraq and Turkey.

Pakpour does not identify the insurgents. However, Mohammed Nazif Qadiri, a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, tells The Associated Press that the fighters belong to his organization.

Both sides give conflicting death tolls from the fighting. Pakpour says the Guard killed 12 insurgents while three of its members died. Qadiri says the Kurds killed over 12 Guard members, including a colonel.

Pakpour says the fighting ended Thursday.

— AP

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