Kurdish opposition groups deny links to IRGC weapons smuggling claims

Erbil, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region on Monday denied to Rudaw any involvement in claims by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that it had foiled an attempt to smuggle “a shipment of weapons” from the Region into Iran’s western Kurdish-majority areas, known as Rojhelat. 

The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency on Monday relayed a statement from the Corps’ Hamzeh Seyyed al-Shohada Headquarters - often referred to as the Hamza Base and responsible for much of the Rojhelat region - claiming that “a large shipment of weapons belonging to anti-revolutionary groups was discovered and seized while being transferred into the country in the border area of Urmia,” the capital of West Azerbaijan province in Rojhelat, along the borders with the Kurdistan Region.

The statement added that “the shipment included a significant quantity of explosives, weapons, and ammunition,” accusing alleged “rioters and terrorist elements” of planning to transport them into the country “to use them for creating insecurity.”

While the statement did not specify who exactly was behind the alleged weapons-smuggling attempt, Iranian authorities frequently use the term “rioters” to refer to Kurdish dissident groups in the Region.

Hama Nazif Qadri, a senior member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) - the largest Kurdish opposition group against the Islamic Republic - told Rudaw on Monday that “this is not the first time such allegations have been made [by the IRGC], and just as we rejected them in the past, we reject them again.”

Meanwhile, Aram Modarresi, a member of the central committee of Komala Toilers of Kurdistan, stated, “We completely reject the Islamic Republic’s claims that Kurdish parties attempted to transfer weapons and that the weapons were seized.”

Similarly, Amjad Hussein Panahi, a senior member of the latter group, dismissed the reports as “baseless rumors,” accusing the IRGC of attempting to “spread propaganda to cover up the fact that it has turned Rojhelat into a militarized zone.”

Another pro-establishment Iranian outlet, Jamaran News, reported on Monday that members of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) attacked a mine in the city of Saqqez, in Rojhelat’s Kurdistan province, “using three vehicles” and “tied up both guards of the mine and turned off their mobile phones, then proceeded to set fire to the mine’s equipment.”

The US and Israel launched a large-scale aerial campaign against Iran in late February, striking thousands of targets across the country during six weeks of hostilities. In response, Iran carried out thousands of drone and missile strikes across the Middle East, targeting alleged US assets - particularly in Gulf Arab states - as well as launching retaliatory attacks against Israel.

The Iranian response also involved Iraqi armed groups aligned with the Tehran-led ‘Axis of Resistance,’ with several factions claiming responsibility for attacks on purported US targets in the region, including in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. Tehran also ramped up its attacks on Kurdish dissident groups in the Region.

The US and Iran later agreed to a Pakistan-mediated ceasefire on April 8, halting fighting to allow space for talks. While the first round of discussions concluded without a final agreement on April 11, a second round has yet to take place, as the war has yet to fully conclude.

Despite the truce, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Department of Media and Information in late April reported that since the outbreak of the war through the 20th of that month, the Region endured over 809 attacks. That number has since risen.

In fact, Tehran, on the day of the April 8 ceasefire, urged the Kurdistan Region and Iraq to expel Kurdish opposition groups and threatened to strike them regardless of the truce.

As of recently, three Iranian drones targeted “residential” sites belonging to the KDPI north of Erbil on Friday, the dissident group reported, accusing the IRGC of standing behind the attack which marked the second of its kind in less than three days. The group  added that “the Islamic Republic of Iran has targeted KDPI family camps, as well as the party’s medical and educational facilities, nearly 130 times using ballistic missiles and drones.”

The escalation comes as Iranian security forces and intelligence agencies have in recent weeks arrested a number of people in the Kurdish-majority areas on allegations of “collaboration” with the US and Israel during the six-week war, and have executed at least 31 political prisoners, including Kurdish political prisoners.

Locals there have also told Rudaw on Sunday that heavy military equipment was being deployed to border areas, raising fears that another military confrontation may be imminent.