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Iran shells cross-border Kurdish villages
in Iraqi Kurdistan
9.10.2008
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October 9, 2008
SULAIMANIYAH, Kurdistan region "Iraq", —
Iranian heavy artillery pounded cross-border Kurdish
areas in Sulaimaniyah province, but no casualties
were reported, a senior official said on Thursday.
"Heavy artillery shelling began last midnight and
continued for an hour," the director of
Sulaimaniyah's Zarawa district, Ezad Wasso, told VOI.
The shelling targeted the areas of Razka,www.ekurd.net
Mardo, Shanawa, and Arka,
nearly 15 km from the Iraqi Kurdistan-Iranian
borders, the director explained, noting that no
casualties were reported.
Iranian forces shell northern Iraqi Kurdish areas
under the pretext that they harbor PJAK fighters. |
Iranian artillery resumes shelling villages in
Kurdistan region in "northern Iraq" |
The PJAK, or the Partiya
Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane (Party of Free Life of
Kurdistan),www.ekurd.net
is a militant Kurdish
nationalist group based in Kurdistan region
"northern Iraq" that has been carrying out attacks
in the Iranian Kurdistan Province of Iran and other
Kurdish-inhabited areas.
PJAK is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic
Confederation (Koma Civaken Kurdistan or KCK), which
is an alliance of outlawed Kurdish groups and
divisions lead by an elected Executive Council.
Led by Haji Ahmadi, the PJAK's objective is to
establish a semiautonomous regional entities or
Kurdish federal states in Iran, Turkey and Syria
similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)
in Iraq.
The PJAK has about 3,000 armed militiamen.
Sulaimaniyah, one of the KRG's three cities, lies
364 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
Since
2004 the PJAK took up arms for self-rule in the
country's mainly Kurdistan province northwestern of
Iran (Iranian Kurdistan, Eastern Kurdistan). Half the members of PJAK
are women.
In a report released in July 2008, the human rights
organisation, Amnesty International
expressed concern
about the increased repression of Kurdish Iranians,
particularly human rights defenders.
The report cited examples of religious and cultural
discrimination against the estimated 12 million
Kurds who live in Iran.
“We urge the Iranian authorities to take concrete
measures to end any discrimination and associated
human rights violations that Kurds, indeed all
minorities in Iran, face,” Amnesty said in its
report.
“Kurds and all other members of minority communities
in Iran, men, women and children, are entitled to
enjoy their full range of human rights.”
Copyright, respective author or news agency, VOI |
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