Rasha Saad reports on Iran's daring cross-border raid into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish insurgents As Iran battles its way to escape international isolation as a result of its nuclear activities, domestic unrest reigns high in the western part of the country. Iranian forces have killed a group they insist were perpetrators of last week's deadly bombing at a military parade. On Monday, Iran's state television reported that the country's elite Revolutionary Guard forces crossed into Iraq and killed 30 fighters from a group involved in the deadly bomb attack last week. Kurdish groups, however, condemned the attack, and no one claimed responsibility. Abdel-Rasoul Mahmoudabadi, the Guards commander in the western province where the parade was bombed, said those killed included "mercenaries" working for the United States, which he implicated in the bombing, the state-run television's website reported. "Thirty of the main elements of the terrorist attack in Mahabad were killed in the operation," Mahmoudabadi said. "These terrorists were comprised of [Iraq's] old Baathist regime officers and American mercenaries," Mahmoudabadi added without giving details. He said the Revolutionary Guards and volunteer Basij militia were involved in the attack. "The weapons seized from them show that the American and Israeli intelligence services were behind it [the bombing]." US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, however, had condemned the Mahabad attack, saying it "underscores the international community's need to work together to combat terrorism." The military parade targeted in last Wednesday's bombing was part of events held in Iran to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the start of the Iran-Iraq war in which more than one million people from both sides were killed. The bomb, placed just 50 metres from the podium at the parade in West Ajarbaijan province, exploded at around 10:20am local time, officials said. Western Iran is home to a sizable Kurdish population, and was a platform of frequent deadly clashes between Kurdish rebel groups and security forces during past years. The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) is one of the main rebel groups operating from bases in neighbouring Iraq. The PJAK is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which took up arms in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey and northwest Iran, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported. The Kurdish rebels have carried out several cross border raids inside Turkey from their safe haven in northern Iraq. They have also frequently clashed with Iranian security forces in the Islamic Republic's western regions. The city of Mahabad, where the bombing took place, is significant to Kurds. With Soviet backing in 1946, the Kurds established the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, but Iran reclaimed the territory by 1947. Some Iranian Kurds believe the regime itself is behind the Mahabad bomb blast. In a statement, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), the main Kurdish opposition party in Iranian Kurdistan, condemned targeting the civilian population and referred to the attack as "a cowardly act which has also targeted the civilian population and has resulted in the death and injury of women and children." According to Loghman Ahmedi, representative of the PDKI in the UK, "This kind of attack is unheard of in Iranian Kurdistan and it is highly unlikely that a Kurdish organisation carried out this attack." Ahmedi claims that Iran supports different extremist groups in order to suppress traditional Kurdish parties. "These groups are being used by Iran in an attempt to curb Kurdish nationalism in Iranian Kurdistan as well as in Iraqi Kurdistan." Some of these groups, Ahmedi explains, controlled large territories around the districts of Halabja and Penjwen in Iraqi Kurdistan on the Iran-Iraq border until 2003 "when American Special Forces in coordination with Iraqi-Kurdish Peshmerga units, managed to force them back into Iran." Sherzad Kamanger, a spokesman for Iranian Kurdish rebels based in Iraq's Qandil Mountains, was quoted on Monday as saying that there have been no recent battles with Iranian forces, though there was some Iranian artillery shelling late Sunday on four border villages that injured one civilian. "We have not engaged in any clashes with the Iranian forces for nearly 20 days," Kamanger told Associated Press. Jabbar Yawir, a spokesman for Iraq's Kurdish forces, also said no Iranian troops crossed the border. Kamanger denied any role in Wednesday's parade attack. The conflict between the Iranian government and Kurds has been escalating this year. In January, Iranian forces clashed with Kurdish fighters in Iran's northwestern border region and arrested a suspect in the killing of a prosecutor. Vali Hajgholizadeh, state prosecutor for Khoy city in west Iran was shot dead outside his home on 18 January. Regional officials said the PJAK claimed to have carried out the attack. Several PJAK fighters were killed in the clashes and one man was arrested, Iranian Mehr news agency said. In May, Iran hanged five members of the PJAK for "anti-revolutionary" acts, including moharebe, or waging war against God, the official IRNA reported. The four men and a woman were hanged at Evin prison in Tehran. A statement from Iranian prosecutors said they were "convicted of carrying out terrorist acts, including the bombings of government centres and public properties in several Iranian cities." Their lawyers however told the press they were positively sure of their innocence. Also in May, Iranian revolutionary guards killed five PJAK in a gun battle in the west of the country. In June, Iranian troops were reported to have crossed into Iraqi Kurdistan and built a fortified base, one of several military incursions as Iraq struggles to form a government six months after stalemated elections.
