Report: Iraqi forces retake border area, remove anti-Iran terrorists

Iraqi border guards have managed to gain full control over an area on the Kurdistan region’s border with Iran and drive out terrorist groups following fierce clashes with them.

Iraq’s Shafaq News Agency cited the country’s Border Guard Forces as saying in a statement late on Friday that they had seized border points in Erbil Province and raised Iraq’s national flag in the area after clashes with the “outlaws”.

“As part of the efforts of the Border Forces Command to control the entire Iraqi border with neighboring countries, a force from the 2nd Border Brigade and the 1st Region Border Commando Regiment, with the support of the Peshmerga Regional Guard forces, was able to capture border points on the strip,” the statement read.

“The Border Forces Command is determined to impose the authority of the Iraq government on the entire border with neighboring countries and raise the Iraqi flag at the furthest point therein,” the statement added.

On Wednesday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said at a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Tehran that Baghdad was committed to a security pact with Iran to disarm anti-Iran terrorist groups based in the Kurdistan region.

Stressing that the Iraqi constitution does not allow any group to use Iraqi territory to attack other countries, Hussein said the Baghdad government and the Kurdistan region are cooperating with each other in this regard and both stress the necessity of implementing the security agreement.

Earlier in the week, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said the September 19 deadline given to Iraq to disarm anti-Iran separatist groups based in the Kurdistan regime will not be extended.

Kan’ani underlined that Iran will take matters into its own hands to ensure its own security if the deadline passes without any implementation of the agreement.

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Amir-Abdollahian had earlier warned that the presence of terrorists in the Iraqi Kurdistan region ran counter to the friendly ties between the two nations and contravened the Constitution of Iraq.

Iran and Iraq signed a security agreement that includes coordination in protecting the border between the two countries in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on March 19.

Anti-Iranian terrorist groups residing in the Iraqi Kurdistan region have increased their malign activities, especially in border areas. Responding to the activities, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) launched several rounds of airstrikes against their positions since September 24 last year, vowing to continue the attacks till the groups are unarmed.

Iran has, on countless occasions, warned the Iraqi Kurdistan’s local authorities that it will not tolerate the presence and activity of terrorist groups along its northwestern borders, saying the country will give a decisive response should those areas become a hub of anti-Islamic Republic terrorists.

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