'BBC Persian inciting PJAK to attack Iran'

Islam Times reports from IRNA: A senior member of the PJAK leadership council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the BBC in a recent interview that she decided to join the militant group to fight for the rights of Kurds.

She added that she is ready to kill Iranian soldiers for her cause.

The BBC report said that since Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) recently deployed a large number of its troops to the northwest of the country along the border with the Iraqi Kurdistan region, PJAK has been preparing for a full-scale confrontation with Iran.

PJAK, which is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), reportedly called for a ceasefire with Iran after some of their members were killed and others injured in the IRGC's latest round of operations against the terrorist group.

PJAK decided to announce a ceasefire with Iran upon the request of some “mediation parties” on the ground and what it claimed was its belief in “peaceful solutions,” the PJAK website said in a statement on Saturday.

The ringleader of PJAK, Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi, told the state-run BBC Persian channel that the group will continue fighting with Iranian forces if the IRGC refuses to accept the ceasefire.

It has also been reported that PJAK and PKK members have dug new tunnels in the Jasosan heights close to Iran's border regions over the past month, exploiting the IRGC ceasefire during the fasting month of Ramadan.

In addition, PJAK and PKK terrorists have received new weapons and equipment, including 120-millimeter mortars and walkie-talkies, from the US consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil.

On Sunday, IRGC Colonel Hamid Ahmadi said a new round of IRGC Ground Forces operations against the positions of the PJAK terrorist group was launched on Friday, September 2.

Upon the request of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the group was given a one-month grace period during Ramadan to retreat from the northwestern borders of the Islamic Republic and stop its terrorist acts in these regions, he added.

“But the PJAK terrorist group paid no heed to the KRG's appeals and mediation (and) martyred two local Kurdish forces… and this proved to the KRG that the terrorists had ignored its requests,” the colonel stated.

PJAK members regularly engage in armed clashes with Iranian security forces along the country's western borders with Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

About 30 terrorists have been killed or injured in the recent IRGC operations.