Iran confirms shelling of Iraqi Kurdistan linked to protests inside country

The deputy commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) for operations, Abbas Nilforushan, has confirmed that its ground forces have been shelling positions of "terrorist groups" in Iraqi Kurdistan over their alleged links with protests inside Iran.

"For some time anti-revolutionaries in the northwestern area have been attacking the country and infiltrating in order to create riots and insecurity and expand the riots. These anti-revolutionary elements have been arrested in the riots in the northwest. Therefore, we were forced to defend ourselves and react and shelled the peripheral area of the border," the Iranian state-run IRNA news agency quoted Nilforushan as saying on September 27.

Nilforushan added that "the bases targeted recently had played a major role in the past days' riots", and vowed to strike any place "that would harbour terrorist movements against the Iranian nation".

The protests have been ongoing since the death of a 22-year-old ethnic Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody, on September 16. The shelling of the positions of "anti-Iranian terrorists" in the border areas of Iraqi Kurdistan started on September 24.

The attacks were reportedly Iran's response to alleged attempts by Kurdish groups Komala and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) to cause riots and unrest by "sending armed teams" to Iran.