 Kurdish separatists have threatened hit-and-run attacks on Iran, which it says plans to bomb their positions in Iraq to gain Turkey's support against the US. Cemil "Cuma" Bayik, the de facto leader of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), said: "We have the right to launch attacks against Iranian forces."
| It's what's known in the trade as a "legitimate right™". |
The PKK has fought Turkey for years in its battle to establish an independent state in the majority Kurdish southeast of the country. He said recent Iranian artillery shelling of PKK camps in Iraqi Kurdistan meant that the rebel group's battle could spread to Iran. "We are on the defence. If we're not attacked we won't either. We believe politics and democracy are a better path," Bayik said. But Bayik said PKK "intelligence reports" suggested that Iran was preparing to shell rebel positions again. "We aren't capable of facing them in open battle. We'll make hit-and-run raids with our Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and mortars," he said. |