Senior Iraninan Official: Iran Not to Stop Operations against PJAK Terrorist Group

A senior Iranian official announced that a large number of PJAK terrorists have been killed or arrested in the recent attack of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps on the terrorist group’s headquarters, stressing that the IRGC will continue operations against the terrorist group.
West Azerbaijan province’s Governor-General Vahid Jalalzadeh made the remarks, adding that the aim of military operation against PJAK terrorist grouplet is defending Iran’s territorial integrity.

He said that enemies of Iran intend to show Iran’s northwestern borders insecure by supporting PJAK terrorist grouplet.

He referred to crimes committed by agents of the grouplet against defenseless people of the region and said that the group has killed more than 250 people in the region.

A bomb explosion during a military parade last year in the city of Mahabad and martyrdom of a number of women and children was one of the crimes of the grouplet agents.

The governor-general said that residents of the region, especially the Kurds, in a meeting with provincial officials requested a strong confrontation with the agents.

‘Clerics and the elderly of the region have supported military operations against PJAK,’ the provincial official told press tv.

He added that in recent operation of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) against the grouplet, many of their bases were destroyed and a large number of the agents were killed or arrested.

Jalalzadeh did not confirm rumors regarding entering of Iran’s armed forces into Iraq soil to operate against the terrorist group.

He stressed that military operation against the group will continue up to the end.

The IRGC has deployed 5,000 military forces in the northwest of the country along its common border with Iraq’s Kurdistan, and has been fighting the PJAK terrorist group over the past weeks in order to establish security and stabilize the area.

On July 25, Iranian forces killed 35 PJAK members, captured a number of others and took control of the terrorist group’s bases in the heights of Sardasht near Iran’s border with Iraq.

In an operation on July 20, IRGC forces also killed a number of PJAK terrorists, and forced a group of them to escape.

On July 17, the IRGC disbanded a terrorist cell linked to PJAK, killing at least five members of the group.

Members of the terrorist PJAK group – an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – regularly engage in armed clashes with Iranian security forces along the country’s Western borders with Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

Recognized as a terrorist group by Turkey, Iran, Iraq, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations, the PKK is responsible for many deadly operations in Northern Iraq and Southern Turkey.