KOYSINJAQ, Iraq — The roof is caved in, a
wall has exploded and broken glass litters the floor at a base of the exiled
Kurdish-Iranian opposition in mountainous northern Iraq.
اضافة اعلان
“These are the regime’s missiles,” said Karim
Farkhapour, a leader of the
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), with
a revolver strapped to his traditional belt.
“The Iranian regime has bombed us three times in
less than two months.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been torn by over
two months of protests sparked by the death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian woman
Mahsa Amini, 22.
As Iranians have vented their anger at the
government, Tehran has blamed outside forces, and exiled Kurdish groups on
whose bases it has rained down missiles and so-called suicide drones.
The PDKI’s headquarters, dubbed “the castle”, near
the town of Koysinjaq, or Koya in Kurdish, looks like a desert mountain fort
straight out of an adventure novel.
The movement settled there in 1993 during the era of
former dictator Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in the 2003 US-led invasion and
executed three years later.
Twelve PDKI members were killed and 20 wounded in
the latest attacks on the site, said Farkhapour.
PDKI members have evacuated the fort, which remains
heavily damaged, with cables dangling from the library roof and books scattered
on the floor.
In another room, Farkhapour stepped gingerly through
the rubble to reach a Kurdish flag that remained unscathed.
“The Tehran regime is going to target us again,” he
predicted grimly. “It’s not over, you’ll see.”
‘Hide the truth’
It was not the first time Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched strikes against the PDKI or
other groups in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Iranian government labels these factions
“terrorists” accusing them of fuelling the civil unrest since the September 16
death of Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly breaching Iran’s strict
dress code for women.
Iran has accused the groups of importing weapons
from Iraq across the porous border long used by smuggling networks.
“False”, retorted Moustafa Mouloudi, another of the
leaders of the PDKI in Koysinjaq.
“There is absolutely no evidence that we have
smuggled weapons from Iraq to Iran,” he said. “It’s a lie that the regime has
made up to hide the truth from the people. The regime is the terrorist.”
Iranian Kurdish groups such as the PDKI and Komala
have long been in Tehran’s sights.
Based in Iraqi Kurdistan since the 1980s with the
blessing of Saddam, who was then at war with Iran, many follow a socialist
doctrine.
“We are a secular party and we fight for women’s
rights,” said Farkhapour.
Although analysts
believe they have largely refrained from armed activities in recent years, they
continue to actively campaign from exile.
The PDKI denounces the discrimination suffered by
Iran’s Kurdish minority, who make up some 10 million out of the country’s 83
million people.
The group has demanded a fully democratic and
federal Iran in which Kurdish provinces would have considerable autonomy.
‘Living in fear’
The group is tightly
organized in a rigid hierarchy and demanded that AFP reporters stick closely to
an official program for the visit.
Within the PDKI, “we are free”, said Shaunem Hamzi,
a 36-year-old activist who lives in Koysinjaq with her parents.
Before the latest attacks, she lived in a PDKI camp
about 500m from the citadel where some 200 families resided in single-story
cinderblock or concrete houses.
However, the
latest attacks, she said, “have been much stronger than the previous ones. The
children, the families were very scared. The fear of getting killed is among us
now.”
Like the other inhabitants, Hamzi had to leave the
camp and now frequently switches sleeping places.
As an Iranian Kurdish woman, she strongly identifies
with the protest movement rocking Iran.
“If the regime even temporarily makes us stop, the
protest will surface again, because it is in our hearts,” she said
passionately.
“The protesters will never obey the regime’s rules.”
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