ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Two Kurdish brothers were killed on Wednesday evening when Iranian security forces fired on their vehicle in Kurdish-majority western Iran, according to a human rights monitor. This comes just two days after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) killed ten Baloch civilians in the south east of the country. Three security force vehicles on Wednesday afternoon surrounded the pickup truck of Abdollah and Osman Naderi, who were travelling in between the villages of Shinabad and Zeydan, just outside the Kurdish city of Piranshahr. The security forces, believed to be from the ministry of intelligence and the IRGC, peppered the vehicle with bullets to the horror of onlookers in the area, according to rights monitor Hengaw. “There was no warning shot and they just fired upon the vehicle and killed the two brothers instantly,” according to witnesses speaking to Hengaw. The bodies were seized by the security forces and taken to Piranshahr, the monitor reported. Iran’s intelligence ministry on Thursday released details of an incident the previous day in which two individuals were killed in a joint effort with the IRGC. “With the cooperation of the Intelligence office in West Azerbaijan and the Hamza Sayyid al-Shuhada Command [of the IRGC], an effort by a terrorist team, intending to carry out an assassination, was neutralized. They were surveilled, and the members of this terrorist team, who were armed and affiliated with a terrorist group in northern Iraq, were killed in a clash,” state-run agency IRNA reported, quoting a statement from the ministry. Iran often refers to Kurdish political parties based in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq, who fight for the rights of Kurds in Iran, as “counter revolutionaries” or “terrorists”. In its statement, the ministry claimed the two individuals killed were carrying two AK47s, a grenade and ammunition at the time of their death. Iranian security forces regularly kill civilians in the Kurdish and Baloch areas of the country, where many make a living by transporting untaxed goods across international borders. The IRGC killed at least ten fuel traders in the southeastern Balochistan area on Monday, sparking riots in the area.
