ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A young woman was killed and two of her brothers wounded by Iranian artillery shelling in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on Wednesday, a local official confirmed.
"At 12:10 p.m. today, Iranian artillery fire, on the premise of targeting the Iranian opposition groups in the region, shelled the Barbazin heights," Ihsan Chalabi, mayor of Sidakan town told Rudaw.
As a result of the shelling, an 18-year old girl named Zaitwn Qadir was killed and her brothers Sirwan and Ismael, 23 and 14, respectively were "critically injured.”
Chalabi added the shelling was ongoing on Wednesday afternoon in the areas of Barbazin, Dere, Dasniya, Talan, Beqapshuk and Dustana.
"A lot of orchards and groves of people also caught fire," he added.
Graphic: Sarkawt Mohammed | Rudaw English, Maps4News
Sidakan is 90 kilometers northeast of Erbil in Soran.
"The Barbazin-Sidakan road was targeted and it is a road connecting 30 villages with one another," Romi Raza, a 20-year-old resident of Sidakan, told Rudaw.
Raza has filmed and submitted several videos from his mobile phone of the wounded being treated at the Sidakan Hospital.
An official at Iran’s Consulate General in Erbil told Rudaw English that they “do not have information” about any cross-border shelling on Wednesday.
Mohammad Taghi Oslanlou, commander of Hamza IRGC, said officials of the Kurdistan Region share the blame for the incident.
“We have warned them repeatedly in the past about allowing these groups to prosper and the officials of Kurdistan Region must not allow them to be there,” he said, according to Tasnim, media close to the IRGC.
In a statement sent to Rudaw, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) condemned the attack and Iran’s retaliation.
“We are angry about both incidents,” the KRG statement said.
“We reiterate that the Kurdistan Region has proven that it is a factor of stability, respecting its neighbors and not allowing nor does it accept its borders being used to destabilize the security of our neighboring countries,” it said.
“We are also calling on the Islamic Republic of Iran to stop the artillery shelling of the Region which has sparked fear and led to the displacement of people,” the KRG added.
The Hamza Sayyid al-Shuhada Command of the IRGC, according to the semi-official Fars agency, said on Tuesday that three of their guards were killed in an ambush in Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran and another was killed in Javanrud, Kermanshah Province, Iran. All were described as ethnically Kurdish.
The opposition groups operate in the mountainous border areas between the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and Kurdish areas of Iran, known as Rojhelat by Kurds.
PDKI announced that the IRGC “issued a threat today to kill PDKI’s party leader Mustafa Hijri.”
“IRGC commander Osanlou stated that they will attack the PDKI everywhere in the world,” PDKI tweeted on Wednesday.
The party added that following the threat “the IRGC started to target the regions of Berbzin, Sidikan, Dasnia, Telan, Be Qeposhk and Dostana with artillery fire at 12:10 local time.”
Iran has regularly shelled areas inside the Kurdistan Region on several occasions on the pretext of the presence of armed Kurdish groups on its border. In September 2018, 17 top KDPI party members were killed in Koya after Iran targeted a coordination center for the opposition groups in a rare rocket attack.
Turkey also carries out military campaigns within the Kurdistan Region against suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets.
The Kurdistan Regional Government and Iraqi federal government repeatedly have called on armed groups not to launch attacks against neighboring countries from within the country.
