ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iran will deploy drones and sensors to a 1,000 kilometre stretch of its border with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the head of the country's border guards said on Monday, as part of a "smart" border defence plan to better seal its frontiers. “One of the priorities of the disciplinary force and the border guards in the border areas…is to relentlessly fight the merchants of death, the narcotic smugglers, and preventing weapons, ammunition and illicit items from entering the country,” border guard chief Ahmad Ali Goudarzi said in a visit to Kurdish areas in western Iran. “The plan is to make the borders smart and survey the borders of the country…the infrastructure for this purpose include optical tools, electronics, drones and any new technologies, light operational vehicles and the equipment needed for the guards.” Iranian Kurdistan's mountainous border areas are home to some of Iran's most impoverished people, neglected by the authorities in Tehran for decades. The borders in these areas are porous, so far allowing tens of thousands of people, known as kolbars, to carry untaxed goods from Iran into the Kurdistan Region on their backs. Implementation of the "smart" measures announced by Goudarzi are very likely to worsen the plight of the kolbars, already vulnerable to attack by border guard forces. In August alone, five kolbars were killed and 26 wounded, mostly at the hands of the Iranian security forces. “The border force is trying to identify and arrest the hidden hands active in smuggling of goods and destroy these networks,” Goudarzi said. “In West Azerbaijan province, we are trying to create lasting security, and in the near future we will make 1,000 km of the border area smart.” Iranian officials including supreme leader Ali Khamenei have in recent years emphasised the importance of controlling the border areas and halting the import of goods from abroad, despite its ramp-up of exports to the Kurdistan Region and the rest of Iraq as coronavirus restrictions ease. “Nat'l production is key to employment, welfare, reducing inflation& increasing nat’l currency’s power. An obstacle to production is unneeded imports like luxury products,” Khamenei tweeted on August 23. “Last year, half a billion dollars were spent to import a certain luxury US mobile brand. Govt must stop this.” Tehran has also condemned growing American and Israeli influence in the Middle East, with Khamenei labeling the latest stage in Israeli-UAE reconciliation as a “betrayal” of the Islamic world. It has also pushed hard through its proxies to force the US-led Coalition out of Iraq. The technological reinforcement will also challenge Iranian Kurdish armed groups based in the Kurdistan Region that have intermittently launched attacks on Iranian border guards and units of the IRGC by crossing the border area since 2015. In recent years, the IRGC has already constructed thousands of kilometres of dirt road in Iran's Kurdish areas so that it can permanently station troops on the border with the Kurdistan Region.
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