A second day of Iranian shelling, as well as Turkish drone flight, was reported over the area of Alana in Erbil province’s Haji Omaran district bordering Iran, local officials and witnesses said on Wednesday, after media outlets close to the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Turkey and Iran agreed to jointly fight what they called Kurdistan Region-based cross-border “terrorism”.
“The artillery shelling started at 9:05 am, lasting for 15 minutes and hitting the area ten times,” Alana village resident Maasuma Hamad Amin told Rudaw. “The bombing has sparked fear among locals.”
According to Haji Omaran mayor Farzang Ahmed, Iranian shelling is specifically targeting Alana’s Baraskan heights.
Due to the shelling, “nomadic families have fled the region,” Ahmed said, adding that the damage it has caused is not yet known.
Local authorities have established a committee of “civil defense, medical teams and police, in order to be on alert in case of injuries and any possible fire,” Ahmed said.
According to another local official, Iranian shelling is occurring at the same time as Turkish operation in the area. Turkey launched a major air operation against suspected Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) positions in the Kurdistan Region on Monday, followed by a ground operation in the Haftanin area of the Kurdistan Region in the early hours of Wednesday.
“Turkish unmanned drones are spotted hovering overhead at the same time,” Alana village chieftain Abdulla Hussein said.
The area has previously been subject to Iranian artillery shelling that targets Iranian Kurdish opposition groups nestled in the Kurdistan Region-Iran border area. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has called on Iranian Kurdish armed groups not to launch attacks against neighboring countries from Kurdistan Region territory.
