ZAKHU (Iraq), April 21: Iranian forces shelled Iranian Kurdish rebel positions inside northern Iraq on Friday to repel an attack, wounding four civilians, Iraqi Kurdish officials said.

“This morning Iranian Kurdish fighters infiltrated the border into the Iranian side and the Iranian army bombed the area and repelled them. The shelling hit Iraqi land at Sidakan,” said Saadi Pira, an official in Iraq’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party.

The governor of the Arbil region, Nawzad Hadi, said four civilians had been wounded in the shelling of the rebels of the Iranian Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK). Sidakan is about 80kms north of the Iraqi city of Arbil and about 10kms from the Iranian border.

The pro-PKK Firat Web site and a rebel spokesman claimed six Iranian soldiers and five Kurdish guerillas had been killed.

The incident could fuel tensions in Iraq, where Sunni leaders accuse Iran of meddling in the country’s internal affairs.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have previously clashed with PJAK separatists in the restive western borderlands.

Security experts say PJAK is an Iranian wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), whose separatist struggle has regained momentum in southeast Turkey since it called off a unilateral ceasefire in the summer of 2004.

REBEL BASES: Turkey has long been concerned about PKK rebel bases in northern Iraq, which it frequently attacked before the invasion of Iraq.