Iranian artillery shells border regions in Sulaimaniya

Iraq-Iran SULAIMANIYA / IraqiNews.com: The Iranian artillery is shelling the mountain regions in Sulaimaniya since Tuesday afternoon without leaving casualties, the director of Zarawa district said. “The Iranian artillery started shelling the villages of Rizka, Mardo, Shinawa in Zarawa district, north of Qalaat Daza district, since this afternoon,” Azad Wasso told IraqiNews.com. “The shelling caused panic among residents, but left no casualties,” he noted. The Iranian army is shelling these areas under the pretext they harbor the PJAK fighters. The PJAK, or the Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan), is a militant Kurdish nationalist group based in northern Iraq that has been carrying out attacks in the Kurdistan Province of Iran and other Kurdish-inhabited areas. PJAK is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation (Koma Civakên Kurdistan or KCK), which is an alliance of outlawed Kurdish groups and divisions led by an elected Executive Council. The Kurdistan Workers Party (KK) is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the United States, NATO and the EU, and is also a member of KCK. Led by Haji Ahmadi, the PJAK’s objective is to establish a semi-autonomous regional entities or Kurdish federal states in Iran, Turkey and Syria similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG) in Iraq. The PJAK, an Iranian Kurdish party that broke away from the PKK, or Partiya Karekeren Kurdistan in Kurdish, in 2004 after the imprisonment of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, started its armed struggle against the regime in Iran with the aim of building a federacy for Iran’s Kurdistan. The PJAK has about 3,000 armed militiamen. Sulaimaniya, one of the Kurdistan RegionG’s three cities, lies 364 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. SH (S)/SR 1