A commander of a Kurdish party opposed to the Iranian government was found dead on Wednesday in a village of the Kurdistan Region near the Iranian border. His party says he was “assassinated.”
Qadir Qadiri, the deceased Peshmemerga, was a commander of the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran.
Ibrahim Zewayee, the head of the PDK foreign office, that they found Qadiri’s body in Hartal village, located in Raniya district of Sulaimani province, about 79 kilometers east of Erbil city.
They have opened an investigation, Zewayee added.
The party revealed in a statement that the commander was on a visit to the “Balisan-Chwarqurna front,” on Tuesday night with his personal car.
The commander was taken out of his car, and shot 20 times, the statement detailed.
“We hold the Islamic Republic of Iran and its mercenaries responsible for the assassination of our brave comrade,” the party said, adding that they see it as a continuation of a series of “terrorist acts,” carried out against Kurdish parties opposed to Iran.
Raniya police said that they found the body in a “grave yard” in Hartal shot 21 times with a Kalashnikov weapon. They identified him as an Iranian citizen and a PDK commander.
The police said that they retrieved the Kalashnikov that was left at the crime scene, adding that they have opened an investigation into the incident with the approval of a judge.
He resided in Koya where Kurdish armed groups from Iran are headquartered.
