Iran has detained 11 Kurdish rebels in the northwest of the Islamic Republic for carrying out a bombing and other attacks, the official IRNA news agency said on Sunday. The Intelligence Ministry said the Kurds were members of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the Kurdish separatist movement, Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), that is fighting Turkey, IRNA reported. Analysts say PJAK rebels have bases in the remote mountains of northeastern Iraq. Iran has on several occasions this year reported clashes between its forces and members of the Kurdish group. “A military propaganda unit of PJAK has been broken up in Kurdistan province and 11 people have been detained,” the ministry said. “They were behind a bomb explosion, attack on a police station, several cases of percussion bomb blasts and acts against Islamic Republic’s system,” it said without giving more details.
Last week, an official Iranian newspaper reported Iranian security forces had killed three Kurdish rebels, also PJAK members, in IranÂ’s Kurdistan province.