PJAK fighters wound villagers near Marivan, Fars reports

Shafaq News- Marivan

Fighters from the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an armed Iranian Kurdish opposition group, opened fire on residents of a village near Marivan in western Iran and wounded several of them as they returned from farm work, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Fars said the residents were hit as they came back from tending fields and orchards and gathering wild plants in Dari village in the Marivan district of Kurdistan province.

PJAK has not responded to the claims.

PJAK has fought the Iranian state since 2004, seeking greater rights and autonomy for Iran's Kurdish population. It is closely tied to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and operates mainly from the Qandil mountains along the Iraq-Iran border. Iran designates it a terrorist organization and routinely refers to its fighters as "outlaws."

Read more: Coexistence by design: Iran's Kurds straddle the line between inclusion and autonomy

The claim lands in the middle of the heaviest Iran-PJAK fighting in years. Clashes flared near Marivan in early June 2026 and spread along the border through the summer. In a recent statement, PJAK said it had held to a "third line" during the wider conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel.

The confrontation extends across the border into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where several Iranian Kurdish opposition parties have been based since the 1980s. Since late February 2026, hundreds of drone and missile strikes have hit those parties' camps and headquarters. Tehran claimed responsibility for some of these attacks.

In an August 9 TV interview, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said the KRI had absorbed more than 1,000 missile and drone attacks, “either from Iran directly or from militias operating inside Iraq,” including strikes on the sites of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups.

Read more: Nearly four weeks of attacks on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq