In Iraq’s Mountains, Iranian Opposition Fighters Feel the Squeeze

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq — Sitting beneath an oak tree on a mountainside within the Kurdish area of Iraq, Mohammad Kurd mentioned he just lately fled neighboring Iran after two buddies have been killed by safety forces and the highly effective Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps began going door to door to arrest antigovernment protesters.

His dishevelled khaki uniform, typical of Kurdish fighters, nonetheless appeared new. In his skinny coat, he shivered from the chilly mountain air.

Mr. Kurd and a small variety of others like him are the newest recruits of Komala, one of many armed Iranian Kurdish opposition teams which have been based mostly within the mountains of the Iraqi Kurdistan area for many years.

“I’m coaching so I can develop into a Peshmerga worthy of my folks and people who have misplaced their lives within the revolution,” mentioned Mr. Kurd, 27, utilizing a time period for Kurdish fighters. “A battle can’t be fought with pens and minds alone.”

A number of thousand Iranian Kurdish opposition fighters are coaching right here within the semiautonomous Kurdistan Area of Iraq for what they are saying is an unfolding revolution throughout the border of their homeland. However the teams are beneath growing strain from all sides.

Iran has been attacking their mountainside bases with missiles and drones, forcing the fighters to disperse into tents scattered larger up the mountains. The Iraqi central authorities, based mostly in Baghdad to the south, needs the Iranian teams to disarm. And more and more, they’re on the heart of escalating tensions between the 2 international locations.

The Iranian strikes are each an expression of rage on the opposition presence in Iraq and a reminder of the vulnerability of the fighters, who’re tightly constrained by their Kurdish Iraqi hosts.

Kurds are an ethnic minority in each Iran and Iraq. However in Iraq, they wield way more energy, governing a whole semiautonomous area within the north of the nation created with the assistance of a U.S.-led no-fly zone within the Nineties. Nearly all the Iranian opposition teams based mostly there take into account an impartial Kurdish state an unattainable dream for now, and name as a substitute for self-rule for the Kurdish areas inside Iran.

The Kurdistan regional authorities in Iraq — which walks a tightrope between supporting Kurdish solidarity and inflaming Iraq’s highly effective neighbor — bars the fighters from shifting throughout the border into Iran.

On Monday, an Iranian commander warned particular villages, cities and neighborhoods within the Iraqi Kurdistan area that they’d be focused subsequent for harboring opposition figures.

If Iran have been to focus on civilian areas, it will be a major escalation of assaults which have up to now been directed primarily on the bases of the Iranian opposition teams. Missile and drone assaults on these bases on the finish of September killed no less than 18 folks, together with two girls and a toddler, based on the opposition teams and hospital officers.

Many of the protesters who’ve fled Iran and sought refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan have come from Iran’s Kurdish provinces, the place the antigovernment demonstrations over the previous two months have been notably virulent. Activists say there are not any dependable estimates of the variety of protesters who’ve fled Iran. A minority of them have signed as much as be fighters.

In his residence metropolis of Divandarreh, Mr. Kurd drove a bus and transported small electrical home equipment on the market on the black market — work that carried the chance of being shot by safety forces. Like many protesters, he mentioned he was angered that Iranian leaders spent the nation’s wealth on conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen whereas its residents went hungry.

Amongst his different grievances with Iran’s authoritarian rulers, he mentioned that in his personal area, Kurds ought to have the best to be educated of their native language, Kurdish, however are barred from doing so.

In September, when the present wave of antigovernment protests started, Mr. Kurd mentioned certainly one of his buddies, a 29-year-old shopkeeper, was shot and killed as he tried to knock down a safety digital camera. One other buddy, a tailor in his late 30s, was shot within the abdomen and died 4 days later, he mentioned.

He then determined to attempt to cross the closed border to Iraqi Kurdistan and joined a wave of pilgrims who stormed the frontier throughout a spiritual vacation, making it throughout with out being checked.

An official with Komala, formally referred to as the Komala Celebration of Kurdistan, mentioned 4 or 5 different protesters had joined the group prior to now two weeks for army coaching at their mountain base. Amongst them was a 20-year-old college pupil becoming a member of her mom who was already within the camp.

Close to the bottom of the mountain about 50 miles from Iran, homes hit by missile strikes in September lay in ruins. Some bore stenciled photos of executed and assassinated leaders from the motion’s historical past.

At a small bakery, one fighter sang a love tune as he made paper-thin sheets of bread.

Since 1986, when Komala established its base in Iraq’s Kurdish area in the course of the Iran-Iraq warfare, its fighters have dreamed of a revolution again residence. Now, older opposition leaders are pinning their hopes on the younger Iranians main the protests inside Iran.

“Hundreds of thousands of Iranians went to the entrance strains to guard Iran in the course of the Iran-Iraq warfare,” mentioned Nevid Mehrawar, a member of the Komala management. “Now their little kids are saying, ‘My father didn’t give his life for this dictatorship.’”

Iran has demanded that the Iraqi Kurdish regional authorities and the central authorities expel or disarm Iranian fighters or put them in closed camps. An Iranian commander on Monday mentioned his nation had launched its assaults on the opposition teams within the Kurdistan area when that didn’t occur.

Iraq’s new authorities is dominated by Iran-backed events that additionally need the bases shut and the fighters disarmed. However the brand new Iraqi prime minister mentioned this month that leaders of the Iraqi Kurdistan area had refused.

Iran has accused Komala and different opposition teams of being separatists accountable for latest killings in Kurdish-majority Iranian provinces and of fomenting the demonstrations, but it surely has supplied no proof.

Mr. Mehrawar mentioned Komala had about 1,000 fighters in Iraq and was armed for self-defense. He mentioned it was not launching armed assaults inside Iran as a result of it needed to keep away from undermining what he described as a civil revolution underway.

One other armed opposition group, the Democratic Celebration of Iranian Kurdistan, has been among the many hardest hit within the Iranian assaults since September. Eleven folks have been killed on its bases close to the Iraqi Kurdish metropolis of Koya, based on get together and hospital officers.

Mustafa Mauludi, 63 and a member of the group’s management, mentioned he joined it 43 years in the past.

“We received’t depart and we received’t hand over our weapons,” mentioned Mr. Mauludi. “Neither Iraqi forces nor Kurdish forces can shield us.”

One other of the opposition teams, the Kurdistan Freedom Celebration — referred to as P.A.Ok. — fought with U.S.-backed Iraqi Kurdish forces in opposition to the Islamic State terrorist group when it invaded northern Iraq in 2014. Now, at its base close to the border of Iraq’s Kirkuk province, it helps maintain the road in opposition to ISIS, however can be close by of hostile militias backed by Iran which might be a part of the Iraqi authorities forces.

9 of its fighters have been killed within the Iranian assaults in September.

P.A.Ok.’s chief, Hussein Yazdanpana, 56, mentioned teams like his usually are not on the forefront of the Iranian antigovernment motion.

“The leaders of this battle are on the streets in Iran,” he mentioned.

After years of division, most of the Iranian opposition events in Iraq at the moment are in talks to unite and current a simpler entrance, one thing that they are saying may gain advantage the broader antigovernment motion throughout Iran.

“The weakest level is there isn’t a united opposition in opposition to the Iranian authorities,” mentioned Siamand Moeini, co-leader of one other Iranian opposition group, the Free Life Celebration of Kurdistan.