Kurdish opposition group confirms death of female fighter in Sulaimani drone attack

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A young female member of the Komala Toilers of Kurdistan, a Kurdish opposition group, has died from wounds she sustained in a drone attack earlier on Tuesday that targeted the group in the Kurdistan Region’s eastern Sulaimani province, a senior security official told Rudaw.

Azad Salawati told Rudaw’s Arkan Ali that “one of the people injured in Tuesday's drone attack, a young woman, has succumbed to her wounds.”

The spokesperson for the Iranian Kurdish opposition group, Amjad Hossein Panahi, identified the slain Peshmerga as Ghazal Mawlan, telling Rudaw that “she died due to the severity of the wounds” sustained in a drone attack targeting the group in the Surdash sub-district, northwest of Sulaimani.

Panahi added that “two other members were wounded in the attack,” describing their condition as “stable.”

Komala later issued a statement saying that Mawlan “was killed in a drone attack launched from the Islamic Republic [of Iran],” noting that she was a native of the city of Mahabad, in the Kurdish-majority West Azerbaijan province in western Iran.

Earlier on Tuesday, two camps belonging to Kurdish opposition groups in the Kurdistan Region came under drone attacks, resulting in several injuries, party sources told Rudaw English.

In addition to the attack on the Komala position, a source from the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), speaking to Rudaw English on condition of anonymity, reported another drone strike on the group’s Azadi camp in Koya city, located around 70 kilometers east of Erbil, adding that “no casualties resulted from the attack.”

In recent weeks, Iran and Iraqi armed groups affiliated with the Tehran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ have intensified their assaults against Kurdish dissident groups in the Kurdistan Region.

The surge coincided with a large-scale joint aerial campaign launched by the United States and Israel in late February, which targeted thousands of sites across Iran.

A Pakistan-brokered two-week ceasefire came into effect on Tuesday to allow space for negotiations.

Despite the truce, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) interior ministry confirmed on Tuesday that the Kurdistan Region has been targeted on at least two of the 12 days of the ceasefire.

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