Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is confronting a fresh wave of unrest in the country’s Kurdish-majority west, prompting analysts to question whether a long-running Kurdish insurgency may be moving into a more active and volatile period as delicate negotiations between Tehran and Washington continue.
The renewed violence carries significance beyond Iran’s border regions. Kurdish opposition groups had recently been discussed as a possible source of leverage against Tehran during the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, but some Kurdish figures now worry they could be left vulnerable as Washington and Tehran cautiously return to diplomacy.
Over the past several days, Iranian security personnel have reportedly been killed in a series of attacks and clashes across western and northwestern Iran. Four members of Iran’s security forces were killed and several others wounded in two separate armed attacks on Tuesday, according to The Jerusalem Post, which cited Iraq’s Shafaq News in an analysis by Seth J. Frantzman.
Kurdish separatists attempted Iran crossing from Iraq amid protests. (Mustafa Ozer/AFP via Getty Images)
In the border city of Paveh, located in Iran’s Kermanshah Province, two members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were reportedly killed and two others injured in what Iranian state-linked media described as an “armed terrorist attack.” The report came from Tasnim News, an outlet closely aligned with the IRGC.
Violence was also reported in Baneh, where gunmen attacked a police checkpoint, killing two officers and wounding three other people, including a 3-year-old girl, The Jerusalem Post reported. The outlet said clashes had also reached Paveh, Marivan and Mahabad, citing Rojhelat.Info, a Kurdish-focused media account.
Responsibility for the Paveh attack was claimed by Xore Heva, or “Sun of Hope,” a little-known armed group that said the operation was carried out in response to Iran’s crackdown on demonstrations following the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini. Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died after being detained by Iran’s morality police over an alleged violation of the country’s mandatory hijab rules, The National reported.
The Kurds remain one of the Middle East’s largest stateless ethnic groups, with significant populations living across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
In Iran, many Kurds live in the country’s mountainous west and northwest, where Kurdish opposition groups have long accused Iran of political repression, executions, forced assimilation and military crackdowns.
Iranian authorities, in turn, view armed Kurdish factions as separatist or terrorist threats, especially groups such as PJAK, which has clashed for years with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps along Iran’s western border. The fight is not simply ethnic: It is also political, rooted in Kurdish demands for rights and autonomy, Iran’s fear of separatism and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s role in suppressing dissent in border regions.
Jino Victoria Doabi, head of international relations at Hiwa, a Kurdish-led human rights organization, told News Agency the latest clashes could appear to mark more than isolated exchanges.
“It looks like this could be an escalation,” Doabi said, referring to the spread of reported clashes.
She said the initial attack appeared to be framed by Kurdish forces as retaliation, but argued the geographic spread suggested the confrontation may continue.
People hold Kurdish scarves and roses during Nowruz festivities in Saqqez, Iran, on March 15, 2024. (Barbod Khorshidi/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Doabi said Kurdish anger is being driven not only by the latest casualties, but by a broader sense that Iran has been able to target Kurdish areas and opposition groups systemically without consequence.
“The Kurdish people in Iran are very dissatisfied that the IRGC can attack Kurdish parties and Kurdish fighters and no one reacts,” Doabi said.
The violence comes as Iran is moving forward with a memorandum of understanding with Washington that has drawn criticism from Iranian opposition circles. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had approved the U.S.–Iran memorandum after receiving assurances that Iran’s rights would be protected, IranWire reported Tuesday.
Iranian officials have described the deal as having the support of top officials, even as critics inside Iran have attacked negotiators over the arrangement, IranWire also reported.
Doabi said Kurdish parties are deeply skeptical of any memorandum of understanding or negotiated arrangement with Iran, arguing that many Kurds believe such a deal would only strengthen the regime.
“Kurdish parties do not believe that making a deal with this regime can help the people in Iran,” Doabi said. “Their position is that a deal would only strengthen the regime.”
Iran-backed fighters celebrate after the IRGC attack on Israel, in Basra, Iraq, Oct. 1, 2024. (Essam Al-sudani/Reuters)
She added that many Kurds in Iran are “very angry” over the idea of any agreement with Iran, citing decades of repression, arrests and killings in Kurdish areas.
“It is going to be very dangerous for people in Iran, and especially in Kurdistan, Azerbaijan and Baluchistan,” Doabi said, “because that is where much of the resistance and activism is.”
The Kurdish groups now under scrutiny include the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, known as PJAK, and its armed wing, the East Kurdistan Defense Units, or YRK.
IranWire reported earlier in June that YRK accused Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of launching artillery and mortar attacks against its positions near Marivan, Iran, beginning June 8, prompting what YRK described as a defensive response. Iranian official outlets had not responded to YRK’s casualty claims at the time, according to IranWire.
That regional sensitivity was on display earlier in 2026, when reports emerged that Kurdish opposition groups could open a front against Iran during the U.S.–Israeli war with Iran.
Israel had been backing plans by Iranian Kurdish militias to seize border areas inside Iran, Reuters reported in March, though the outlet said the fighters would likely need U.S. and Israeli backing to make a significant move. Five long-standing Iranian dissident groups, including PJAK, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Freedom Party, had formed an alliance, Reuters also reported.
During the war, Trump told Reuters that he would be “all for it” if the Kurds wanted to move against Iran and said their objective should be “to win.” But Reuters reported that Kurdish commanders were frustrated by a lack of clear U.S. or Israeli strategy and that Iran’s threats helped keep Kurdish forces from launching an incursion.
Regional reports later claimed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan persuaded Trump to abandon a plan to arm Iranian opposition groups and Iraqi Kurdish groups against Tehran. Israeli media reported June 6 that Erdogan pressed Trump to scrap the proposal after details were allegedly leaked to Turkey by White House officials.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel walk along Enghelab (Revolution) Avenue as an Iranian Kheibar missile is unveiled during the Ela Beit Al-Moghaddas (Al-Aqsa Mosque) military rally in Tehran, Iran, on Nov. 24, 2023. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The latest violence does not prove that a coordinated insurgency is underway. But the reported spread of clashes across multiple Kurdish areas, the involvement claimed by Kurdish militant factions and Kurdish opposition to ongoing U.S.–Iran talks suggest that Iran’s western borderlands could become a new pressure point for Tehran at a moment when the regime is trying to preserve both internal control and fragile diplomatic momentum.
News Agency has reached out to Iranian officials and Kurdish representatives for comment.
