Free Republic

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg14.htm February 4, 2009 TG-14 Treasury Designates Free Life Party of Kurdistan a Terrorist Organization Washington, DC – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish group operating in the border region between Iraq and Iran, under Executive Order 13224 for being controlled by the terrorist group Kongra-Gel (KGK, aka the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK). "With today's action, we are exposing PJAK's terrorist ties to the KGK and supporting Turkey's efforts to protect its citizens from attack," said Stuart Levey, Treasury's Under Secretary...

14 Iranian troops killed in helicopter crash 23 minutes ago Fourteen Iranian military personnel were killed in a helicopter crash last week during an operation against rebels close to the Turkish border, the Revolutionary Guards confirmed on Monday. A statement carried by the ISNA agency said that two commanders of the Guards' ground force and 12 other military personnel were killed in Friday's accident. Kurdish rebels had claimed they shot down the aircraft. "Commanders Ghahari Said and Dorosti of the Guards' Hamzeh Army 3, along with 12 other members of the Islamic republic's army and the Guards, were martyred in...

LONDON, August 19 (IranMania) - Kurdish rebels on Friday accused Iranian forces of shelling several villages inside northern Iraq, killing two civilians and forcing many to flee the region after two days of strikes, AFP reported. "Iranian forces have since 9:00 am (0500 GMT) hit several villages near the mountainous Qandil region and killed two civilians," said Rustom Judi, a local leader from the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). He said the Iranian artillery bombarded "eight villages, and today was the second day of strikes in the same region" on the Iranian border. Judi said many villagers fled their...

The Iranian government is facing a new security challenge from a small, armed Iranian Kurdish group emboldened by the political gains of Kurds in neighbouring Iraq. Pejak, the Party for a Free Life in Iranian Kurdistan, has emerged as behind recent unrest in the predominantly Kurdish north-west of the country, renewing a separatist armed struggle that halted a decade ago. Of Iran's 70m population, about 10 per cent is estimated to be Kurdish. Iranian Kurds were suppressed during Iran's 1979 revolution. But the main Kurdish opposition groups in the Islamic republic, including the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) and...