LONDON: Attacks by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on political organizations in Iraqi Kurdistan last month killed civilians, Human Rights Watch has said.
The strikes came amid mass protests across Iran that began on Sept. 16 following the death of a Kurdish woman, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, after she was detained and beaten by the country’s morality police for “improperly” wearing a hijab.
Hundreds of people have subsequently been killed, injured and arrested by the authorities in the unrest.
The IRGC claimed responsibility for the attacks in Iraq — which killed at least 16 people — on what it called “terrorist bases” in late September, but HRW said residents claimed strikes were launched on areas with no military value or activity.
The first attack, on Sept. 24, saw the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran shelled in the Iraqi city of Erbil.
On Sept. 28, the offices of the KDPI and the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan were shelled in the Koya district of Erbil governorate which, HRW says, resulted in a school being hit, and attacked with drones and missiles in Sulaymaniyah governorate.
One woman, identified as Reyhane Kanaani — who was 36 weeks pregnant at the time — was killed in Koya, and two children seriously injured, according to UNICEF. Doctors fought to save her and tried to save her baby, but were unable to do so.
Kanaani’s husband Zanyar Rahmani, who works at the KDPI offices that were attacked, told HRW: “Our home is 1.5 km away from the party headquarters. (We live) in a camp for refugees, mostly women and children live there. The area where my wife and I live is not a military place, it is residential for civilians.”
Fuad Khaki Baygi, a member of the KDPI, told HRW: “We are a political party, not a military group. (Iranian authorities) are trying to divert attention from the protests in Iran, so they’ve resorted to indiscriminate shelling in civilian-populated areas in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.”
A police officer stationed near the KDPI offices that were shelled in Koya told HRW: “We have never seen them doing any military activities in the headquarters because it’s located in a residential area. I am aware they have some military activities, but in the mountains, not in the cities.”
The attack in Sulaymaniyah hit a residential complex in Zargwezalla where the Komala Party’s offices were based.
Mohammed Hakemi, a Komala member, told HRW: “We don’t have any military activities. The residents of the complex are all refugees from Iran who escaped.”
Adam Coogle, HRW’s deputy Middle East director, said: “Iran’s Revolutionary Guards forces’ attacks on residential areas in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is part of a long history of lethal attacks on civilians, including during the war in Syria.
“Countries seeking to hold Iran accountable for its brutal crackdown in recent days should also ensure that those responsible for indiscriminately killing civilians abroad are held accountable as well.”
This is far from the first case of the IRGC targeting organizations based in neighboring Iraq, having killed at least 14 people in a missile attack on Koya in September 2018.
The IRGC was also responsible for the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 on Jan. 8, 2020, killing all 176 people on board, following a series of missiles launched at Iraqi territory after the assassination of IRGC chief Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad by a US drone.
