DUBAI: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had killed five members of the banned Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) in the country’s northwest, state media reported on Thursday, amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Kurdish militant groups.

The Guards said the group was ambushed after entering Iranian territory in mountainous border areas near Piranshahr in West Azerbaijan province, without specifying when the operation took place.

According to the Norway-based Kurdish rights group Hengaw, the clashes took place on Wednesday evening.

The PDKI has been involved in decades of intermittent conflict with the Islamic Republic, and Kurdish armed groups in Iran have long been viewed by Tehran as separatist threats. During the recent conflict with Tehran, US and Israeli expectations that Kurdish fighters could play a ground role against Iran quickly faltered amid mixed signals from Washington and Israel, while Iranian threats and strikes against Kurdish positions in Iraq deterred the groups from entering the war.

A similar incident near Piranshahr was reported by state media on Tuesday, with the Revolutionary Guards saying they had killed six members of an “opposition and separatist group”.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2026