Iranian forces kill Kurdish rebels near Iraq border

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Source: The Guardian

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have killed at least 30 Kurdish rebels in fighting near the Iraqi border, according to a military official.

A senior Iranian military spokesman, Colonel Hamid Ahmadi, told state TV that another 40 members of the Iranian Kurdish group Pejak had been injured during fierce clashes outside the border city of Sardasht.

Following the clash a Pejak spokesman inside Iraq declared an immediate, unilateral ceasefire.

Shirzad Kamanger appealed for Iranian forces to stop shelling rebel bases and open talks over the Kurdish group's demands for greater rights in Iran.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/05/iran-kurdish-rebels-iraq-border

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1. From the article: "A ceasefire with a terrorist group doesn't make any sense."

Most experts describe PJAK as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). <11>. According to the New York Times, the PJAK shares the same leadership and logistics of the PKK militants in Turkey, as well as allegiance to its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, but unlike the PKK fights Iranian government forces rather than the Turkish government ones.


The PKK is on the U.S. terrorist list.