SARDASHT : PJAK CLASHED WITH IRANIAN FORCES

AFP – 27.8.2013 – Iranian Kurdish rebels based in Iraqi Kurdistan (southern Kurdistan) claimed on Monday to have killed seven Iranian soldiers in clashes last week near the Islamic republic’s border with Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) said two of its fighters had died in the August 22 clashes near the Sardasht border area in eastern Kurdistan (northwestern Iran), apparently the first such deadly violence between the two sides since April 2012. Iranian forces … attacked and swept the area near Sardasht,” the PJAK said in a statement. “Severe fighting erupted between the two forces … which led to the killing of seven Iranian soldiers,” it said, adding that two PJAK fighters also died. The clashes were the first account of a deadly conflict between the rebels and Iranian forces since PJAK fighters killed four members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards in April 2012.