TEHRAN – General Mohammad Pakpour, the chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Ground Force, announced the deployment of new military reinforcements along the border with Iraqi Kurdistan.

General Pakpour said the special and armored units currently deployed along the Iraqi border will be further reinforced as Iran continues its military campaign against Iranian Kurdish separatist groups based in northern Iraq. 

“This action has been taken with the aim of preventing the infiltration of terrorist teams affiliated with the separatist groups that are based in Iraq’s northern region as well as preventing the smuggling of arms into the country,” Pakpour said of the new military reinforcements, according to Iran’s state news agency, IRNA. 

He said the reinforcements were done after the separatist groups created insecurity in northwest Iran. 

“Currently, some of the IRGC Ground Force’s armored and special units are moving to western border provinces and the northwest of the country,” the IRGC commander said.

Over the last few days, the IRGC resumed the shelling of the bases of Iranian Kurdish separatist groups inside Iraqi Kurdistan. And Iranian officials said this military campaign will continue until the Iraqi central and local authorities disarm and expel these groups. 

The IRGC Ground Force announced in a short statement Monday that it resumed pummeling the bases of the separatist groups in Iraqi Kurdistan with missiles and drones.

The statement said the targeted bases were used for training and organizing terrorist separatist groups in the northern region of Iraq. It also said the groups are the mercenaries of Global Arrogance, a reference to the Western great powers.

The Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Mohammad Kazem Al Sadeq, has said in an interview with Al Alam news television that Iran has several times called on Iraq’s central and local officials to disarm the Kurdish separatist groups but no action was taken by the Iraqi side.

Al Sadeq said that Iran has provided more than 70 documents to Iraq on the presence of armed terrorist groups in the Kurdistan region. He noted that Iran has asked the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan authorities to disarm armed terrorist groups within a period not exceeding 10 days.

The Iranian ambassador to Iraq said that the commander of the Quds Force visited Iraq and met the Iraqi leaders, indicating that Iran had agreed with the central government and the authorities of the Kurdistan region to deploy Iraqi forces on the borders of Kurdistan, but it was not implemented.