Iran launched new cross-border missile and drone strikes Tuesday against Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups based in northern Iraq whom it accuses of stoking a wave of protests in the Islamic republic.

Iran has been shaken by more than two months of civil unrest -- which authorities in the country describe as "riots" -- sparked by the death of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, after her arrest for allegedly breaching the strict dress code for women.

Iran's Tasnim news agency said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had "launched a new round of attacks against terrorist groups based in the Iraqi Kurdistan region", the second such strikes in two days.

The report said the headquarters of the Kurdistan Freedom Party "was targeted by missiles and suicide drones" near Kirkuk.

An Iraqi Kurdish military official, a local police officer and a party spokesman confirmed the renewed strikes on the region.

"We had taken our precautions and emptied the premises, there were no casualties," Kurdistan Freedom Party spokesman Khalil Nadri said.

IRGC General Mohammad Pakpour also confirmed the strikes, saying the Kurdish group had "given support to the recent riots" in northwest Iran.

Attacks against "anti-Iranian separatist-terrorist groups in northern Iraq will continue until the threat is eliminated and they are disarmed", the Guards' website quoted Pakpour as saying.

Kurdistan regional government spokesman Lawk Ghafuri said on Twitter: "Today the Islamic Republic of Iran targeted Iranian opposition groups in two areas in the Kurdistan region with rockets".

He said the sites hit were in the city of Perdi, the Kurdish name of Altun Kupri, north of Kirkuk, and the Degala region east of Arbil, the regional capital.

Iraqi Kurdistan has since the 1980s hosted several Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups which have in the past waged an armed insurrection against Tehran.

In recent years their activities have declined, but the new wave of protests in Iran has again stoked tensions.

Rights groups on Monday also accused Iranian security forces of using live fire and heavy weapons to suppress protests in Kurdish-populated regions in Iran's west, intensifying a deadly crackdown there.

Late Sunday night, IRGC missile fire and suicide drone strikes targeted the bases of several Iranian opposition factions in north Iraq, killing one person.

These cross-border strikes come less than a week after similar attacks killed at least one person, and following attacks in late September that killed more than a dozen people.

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Protest-hit Iran again strikes Kurdish groups in Iraq
Arbil, Iraq (AFP) Nov 21, 2022
Iran again launched deadly missile and drone strikes overnight into Monday against Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraq whom it accuses of stoking unrest inside the Islamic republic. One Kurdish peshmerga fighter was reported killed in mountainous northern Iraq, where two of the groups said their bases had been targeted in the latest such barrage of aerial attacks in recent months. Iran has been shaken by more than two months of protests sparked by the death of Kurdish-Iranian woman M ... read more