( dpa ) - Iranian forces continued the attacks Sunday on villages in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymanyah, where Iranian Kurdish rebels are believed to be operating, Kurdish sources and media reports said.
Already on Thursday morning Iranian artillery had shelled seven villages in the area of Qalit Diza in Sulaymanyah province in Iraq's Kurdish Autonomous Region, Hasan Abdallah, the head of Qalit Diza council, told the Voices of Iraq news (VOI) news agency.The shelling continued until Sunday but caused no casualties. However, inhabitants of eight villages fled for their lives, Kurdish sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The Iranian army frequently shells villages in the mountains of Sulaymanyah where it alleges that rebels from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) are based.
The PJAK is part of an alliance of Kurdish rebel groups, including the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The rebel alliance is engaged in a paramilitary campaign to win autonomy and rights for the Kurdish minorities in Iran and Turkey.
Kurdish rebel groups are believed to be operating from northern Iraq where Iraq's Kurds established an autonomous government, which is part of a federal Iraq.