Iran says five rebels killed in Kurdish region

Tehran, Jun 26: Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said it killed five armed rebels in recent clashes along its border with Iraqi Kurdistan, state media reported. A statement from the Guards, published late Saturday by official news agency IRNA, said "five armed rebels linked to counter-revolutionary groups" were killed on Friday night.

It did not give the name of the rebel group, though a number of separatist Kurdish insurgencies are known to be active in the region. There have been increasing reports of clashes in the northwest after a period of relative calm over the past year or more.

The Revolutionary Guards said on June 16 that similar clashes had led to the death of 12 "terrorists" and three Iranian soldiers in the city of Oshnavieh. That followed reports that five Kurdish rebels were killed in the region a few days earlier.

PTI