Information regarding the killing of Mr. Osman Osmani, son of Mohammad and Zeineh, was obtained from an interview conducted by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with Ms. Khadijeh Purmand, Mr. Osmani’s wife (January 15, 2021). The news of this killing was also published on the Akam News website (September 9, 2018), on the official website of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Kurdistan u Kurd (September 9, 2018), the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s archives (undated), and on the Hengaw Human Rights Organization website (September 9, 2018).

Additional information was obtained through interviews conducted by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with Mr. Kamal Karimi, member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (January 1, February 4, and March 2, 2021), Mr. Mansur Khosravi, member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (March 31, 2021), and Mr. Farzin Nadimi, research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (April 20, 2021). Additional information was obtained from the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s Charter, passed in its 16thCongress (February 2016), Reuters News Agency (July 21, 2018), Persian Deutsche Welle (July 10, 1nd 22, 2018), the official website of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Kurdistan u Kurd (February 16, 2016; September 7, 2016; September 8, 2018), ISNA News Agency (September 10, and 14, 2018), and other sources.*

Additional information was obtained through interviews with Mr. Kamal Karimi, member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s political office (January 1, February 4, and March 2, 2021), Mr. Mansur Khosravi, member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (July 9, 2021), ISNA News Agency (September 10, and 14, 2018), Mehr News Agency (September 10, 2018), Defa-e Moqaddass (“Holy Defense”) website (September 9, 2018), and from other sources.*

Mr. Osmani was an ethnic Kurd, married, and born on November 1, 1964, in a political family in Piranshahr County’s village of Gerdashawan in West Azarbaijan Province. Mr. Osmani had a fifth grade education, and after the Islamic Revolution, became a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan at the age of 16. (Boroumand Center interview, January 15, 2021). He and 7 other members left the Party in June and rejoined the Party a short while later.

Upon completing a training program in working with wireless radios, Mr. Osmani worked as a radio communications specialist and member of the political staff in the Party’s Information and Communications Section in the towns of Baneh, Naqadeh, Piranshahr, and Oshnuyeh, for five years, beginning in 1981-82. In 1986-87, he worked in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s Political Office as the Office’s liaison with the Party’s members and municipal committees. In early 1988, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan went through a schism and in the spring of that year, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan - Leadership of the Fighters, was formed. Between 1988 and 1996-97, Mr. Osmani worked as a staff member at the Party’s Secretariat. The new Party merged once again with the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan in 1996-97. From then until 2006, Mr. Osmani was a political staff member at the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s Secretariat. (Party Archives, Boroumand Center interview, January 15, 2021, July 9, 2021).

After the split in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan in 2006, Mr. Osmani became a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and worked as political staff member at the Party’s Secretariat until September 2018. (Boroumand Center interview, January 15, 2021).

Mr. Osmani was a kind, personable, and calm man. He liked reading and was an adept learner. Mr. Osmani’s wish was for his children to have bright future. (Boroumand Center interview, January 15, 2021).

The Kurdish Problem in the Islamic Republic

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the disagreements between the government of the Shiite Islamic Republic and the organizations in the Kurdish regions of western Iran regarding the rights and roles of minorities in drafting the Constitution; whether the government should be secular or religious, and especially the issue of Kurdish autonomy; and conflicts that resulted in Kurdish political organizations boycotting the April 1979 Referendum on instituting an Islamic Republic; led to serious, and at times armed, clashes between the central government and the Peshmerga (Kurdistan Democratic Party’s armed forces).

On August 19, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini labeled the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), the oldest and most influential Kurdish Party, “the Party of the Devil”, and declared it “unofficial and illegal”, and ordered a military attack on Kurdistan. Mass executions and intense armed clashes continued in the region for months, clashes that resulted in the deaths of a number of civilians and the displacement and relocation of the residents of certain towns. In the next four years, Kurdish parties lost their grip on power in the region to a great extent, and relocated to Iraqi Kurdistan. Since then, a number of their leaders and members have been assassinated outside Iran, especially in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In the years since the Islamic Republic has been in existence, in addition to such entities as the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, Komala (Revolutionary Organization of the Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan), the Koran School led by Ahmad Moftizadeh, Organization of Iranian Kurdistan Struggle (which was active in the early years of the Revolution), certain other Kurdish opposition parties were established outside Iran, such as the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) and the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK). These parties, with policies and ideologies that are not necessarily similar and uniform, have settled in parts of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in Iraq, such as Koy, Soleimanieh, and in the foothills of Qandil mountains. Some of these parties have undergone splits in recent years. These conflicts have been more about the methods of running the organizations rather than theoretical and ideological differences. These parties have not controlled any part of the Iranian territory since the late 1980’s, and have adopted different strategies in different periods in order to confront the Islamic Republic, advance their political objectives, and recruit members.

Beginning in 2006, the conflicts between the regime and Kurdish parties – who had increased their presence in Iran in reaction to the government intensifying the detention and execution of Kurdish activists and the spread of fundamentalist beliefs in Kurdish regions – entered a new and more serious phase. Kurdish forces, especially the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the PJAK, were attacked several times inside Iran and in Iraqi Kurdistan border regions by border patrol forces and the revolutionary Guards. That same year, Revolutionary Guards conducted armed attacks against the positions of Iranian Kurdish parties inside the borders of the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Iraq. The bombing of the Night of Yalda ceremonies (an ancient celebration of the longest night of the year) in 2006, which was also Abdorrahman Qassemlu’s birthday, resulted in the death of five Party members and 2 members of the Iraqi Kurdistan security forces. Kurdish forces also attacked Islamic Republic forces on several occasions. At least dozens were killed on each side in these military clashes.**

In subsequent years, particularly in 2017 and 2018, the clashes continued with less frequency and intensity. The most important of these clashes was the attack by PJAK forces on a border post on July 21, 2018, which resulted in 11 deaths. (Deutsche Welle, July 22, 2018; Reuters, July 21, 2018). On September 8 of that same year, the seat of the Kurdistan Democratic Party – a party that opposed armed struggle and had not participated in the clashes with the Islamic Republic forces – located in Koy in Iraqi Kurdistan, was the target of a rocket attack by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in which 16 people were killed and 50 injured. (ISNA News Agency, September 14, 2018; Kurdistan u Kurd website (September 8, 2018).

Background on the Formation of the Kurdistan Democratic Party

Following internal conflicts within the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan – established in 1945 with the aim of autonomy for Kurdistan in northwestern Iran – the Party went through a shakeup in 2006 and was split into two separate organizations, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK). The PDK seeks “the establishment of a Kurdistan Republic within the framework of a federal Iran”. (Charter of the PDK, passed in its 16thCongress in February 2016). This party has not ruled out armed struggle; it has, however, prioritized political struggle and the expression of the people of Kurdistan’s demands through elections and other civil activities within the framework of existing domestic laws in order to achieve their goals. (The official website of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Kurdistan u Kurd, February 16, 2016).

The PDK has demanded the implementation of, and even negotiation over, Principles 15*** and 19**** of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic that deals with the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. In 2016-17, Party officials met with Iran’s National Security High Council officials in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. On February 15, 2016, in the Concluding Declaration of its 16thCongress, the Party emphasized “rendering the struggle and the activities more robust, both inside and outside the country, and strengthening the nationalist discourse as well as the spirit of unity and solidarity in Iranian Kurdistan in all areas and contexts” through “utilization of all means and methods of struggle for the purpose of universalizing the nationalist discourse in Iranian Kurdistan, relying on unity and solidarity”. (Boroumand Center interview, February 4, 2021; Giarang, January 3, 2019; Deutsche Welle, July 10, 2019; the official website of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Kurdistan u Kurd, February 16, 2016).

Threats Made Against Mr. Osmani and His Death

On September 8, 2018, Mr. Osman Osmani was killed in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ rocket attack on the location where a meeting of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s Central Committee was being held in the town of Koy Sanjaq, located in Iraq’s Erbil Province.

At 10:45 in the morning of September 8, 2018, the political offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) located in a building known as the Democratic Qala (“Fort”) in Koy Sanjaq, a town 66 kilometers (41 miles) from the Iran-Iraq border, was the target of a rocket attack by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The structure, which is 700 meters (765 yards) long and 200 meters (218 yards) wide, is comprised of 100 rooms on two levels and a basement, where all of the Party’s various sections are located, that is, the political and military sections, other sections related to women, children, and youth issues, the Party’s radio and television, as well as the sleeping and living quarters of the single members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s Peshmerga. Married Peshmerga and their families live one kilometer from this structure. The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s offices and buildings, including the Party’s training and education center is also approximately one kilometer to the east of this structure. The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s training and education center is the closest building to the Qala. Party ceremonies used to be conducted in this building prior to the attack. The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s political and military training headquarters were also targeted. (Boroumand Center interview, March 31, 2021).

According to Ms. Purmand, Mr. Osmani’s wife, he went to the Party headquarters known as “Qala” (“Qal’eh” or fort) at 9 o’clock in the morning in order to participate in the Central Council’s meeting. Ms. Purmand said this to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center regarding the attack: “I worked at the Qala myself. At around 10:00 AM, he briefly visited me and left about 30 minutes later. After about two minutes there was a lot of noise as the attacks began. Dust covered everywhere. I had seen a lot of shelling but I had never seen an attack like that. They were major attacks. Everything was crumbling down; the walls were crumbling and water was coming down from coolers and water reservoirs. The windows were breaking. I was afraid to ask if anybody had survived, and who had been martyred. It was so bad that I thought everyone had been martyred, and I was very happy when I would see someone alive.” (Boroumand Center interview, January 15, 2021).

According to the Revolutionary Guards and local eyewitnesses, seven ground to ground precision missiles were fired, three of which hit the PDK headquarters, and two hit the ground close to the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s training center. As a result, 14 PDK members and 2 PDKI members were killed, and 50 were wounded, a number of whom were women and children. (Boroumand Center interview, January 1, 2021; official website of the Kurdistan Democratic Party; Holy Defense News Agency, September 9, 2018).

In an interview with Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, Farzin Nadimi, research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, stated: “Based on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ claims, the technology used in the Fateh 110 missile used in the attack against the Kurdistan Democratic Party headquarters probably had a high level of precision.” According to Mr. Nadimi, one cannot opine on why the other two missiles did not hit a specific target, and it is not clear whether these rockets were supposed to hit the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s headquarters or the seat of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. (Boroumand Center interview, April 20, 2021).

Regarding her and her two children’s condition, Ms. Purmand said: “The situation was just awful. None of us knew that Osman had been martyred; we were told that the wounded were in Erbil. I was asking my friends to go to the hospital and find him. Osman’s sister had gone to Koy where Osman’s body was, and had found Osman’s name among the martyrs, but no one had told me anything.” (Boroumand Center interview, January 15, 2021).

Ms. Purmand, who was also injured in the attacks, learned of her husband’s death that same afternoon. (Boroumand Center interview, January 15, 2021).

After the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ rocket attack on the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s headquarters and the execution of three Kurdish political prisoners, Zanyar Moradi, Loqman Moradi, and Ramin Hosseinpanahi, Kurdish civil and political activists and Kurdish parties, including the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan, the Iranian Kurdistan Struggle, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party issued a call for a nationwide strike on September 8, 2018. Following this call, business owners in bazars of various towns in Kurdistan, Western Azarbaijan, and Kermanshah Provinces shut down their stores on September 12, 2018. (Deutsche Welle, September 12, 2018).

Iranian Officials’ Reaction

News of the September 8 rocket attack was initially published by semi-official media close to military institutions. A day later, on September 9, 2021, the Revolutionary Guards Corps issued an announcement in which it accepted responsibility for the rocket attack on the Kurdistan Democratic Party camp, stating that the reason for the attack was “the leaders of these groups’ defiance and inattention to serious warnings issued by the Iraqi Kurdistan Autonomous Region’s officials emphasizing the Islamic Republic’s determination to remove their bases, and the necessity for putting an end to their mischief, aggression, and invasive and terrorist activities against Islamic Iran”. (Holy Defense News Agency, September 9, 2018). Bahram Qassemi, then-spokesman of Iran’s Foreign Ministry declared that the attack was a response to the July 21, 2018 attack on the border post that had resulted in the death of several border patrolmen. (Mehr News Agency, September 10, 2018). On July 21, 2018, however, Reuters New Agency had quoted Hossein Khosheqbal, Kurdistan Province’s Deputy Governor for Political [Affairs], as attributing the attack on the border post to the PJAK. In an interview with Fars News Agency, Mohammad Hossein Rajabi, commander of Kurdistan’s Shahid Shahramfar Provincial Military Base had also stated on September 8, 2018, that is, one day after the attack on Kurdish parties in Iraq, that the killing of 6 PJAK members [on September 7, 2018] by the Revolutionary Guards local forces in “a pursuit operation named after the great Heidar Karrar” was in response to the attack on the border post and the killing of “11 indigenous Guards”. (Fars News Agency, September 8, 2018; Reuters, July 21, 2018).

Confirming Iran’s rocket attack, Ali Shamkhani, National Security High Council’s Secretary, stated that it was a response to “activities that jeopardized [national] security”. (ISNA News Agency, September 10, 2018). Furthermore, Major-General Mohammad Baqeri, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed Forces asked the Iraqi Government and the government of Iraqi Kurdistan Autonomous Region to either turn over the members of that Party and of other parties opposed to Iran, or expel them from their territory. (ISNA News Agency, September 14, 2018).

The Kurdistan Democratic Party’s Reaction

In an interview with the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, Kamal Karimi, member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s political office stated that the Party had not conducted any military operations inside Iran since the split in 2006, and that the dispatch of the Peshmerga inside Iran was in order to conduct propaganda and promotion activities. (Boroumand Center interview, February 4, 2021). Hengaw Human Rights Organization’s 2016 report (the timeframe of the research conducted), which records military activities between Kurdish parties and the Iranian regime’s military forces, does not contain any form of clashes between the members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party with the Islamic Republic’s military and security forces. The Kurdistan u Kurd website, the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s news arm, reported the killing of two of its members on September 6, 2016, that had been in Iran in order to carry out “political activities” and had been trapped in an “explosive net”. (Kurdistan u Kurd website, September 7, 2016).

The Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan reacted to the Islamic republic’s missile attack in separate announcements. The Kurdistan Democratic Party’s political office condemned the Revolutionary Guards’ missile attack on the Party’s bases, and asked political groups, activists, international organizations and institutions, and the world public opinion to condemn the attack. In its announcement, the Party emphasized that the location where the missiles had hit were the Party’s offices and civic centers. (Kurdistan Democratic Party’s website, September 8, 2018). According to Kamal Karimi, the 2018 attack on a border post in [the town of] Marivan, which was the pretext for the missile attack on the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s offices, had been carried out by the PJAK and the latter had officially accepted responsibility for that attack. (Boroumand Center interview, March 2, 2021; Radio France, July 21, 2018).

According to available information, the Kurdistan Democratic Party has continued negotiations with the Islamic Republic after the missile attack. The Party and three other Kurdish political groups were in direct negotiations with the Islamic Republic in July 2019, with a Norwegian non-governmental organization as intermediary. However, in an interview with the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, Kamal Karimi, member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s political office, stated that these negotiations have been halted for now. (Deutsche Welle, July 8, 2019; Boroumand Center interview, February 4, 2021).

Reaction of the Governments of Iraq and the Kurdistan Autonomous Region of Iraq

On Sunday, September 9, 2018, the Iraqi government condemned the missile attack on the bases of two opposition Kurdish parties by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and called it a “violation of its sovereignty”. Ahmad Mahjub, Iraq Foreign Ministry’s spokesman stressed: “Iraq wishes to [maintain] the security of its neighboring countries, and is opposed to any use of its territory for the purpose of endangering the security of these nations. Therefore, Baghdad strongly refutes any breach of its sovereignty caused by bombing any targets inside Iraqi territory without first obtaining the prior consent of Iraqi authorities.” The government of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region also issued a statement in which it condemned the Revolutionary Guards Corps’ aerial attack on the democratic parties’ offices and asked the Islamic Republic and the Iranian Kurdish parties settled in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region not to turn the Region into a conflict and competition zone. The Iraqi President Foad Massum expressed his concern and sorrow and stated that Iran’s attack on the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s camp and offices in the town of Koy constituted an extensive breach of the country’s security. (Radio Farda, September 9, 2018; Kurdistan 24, September 9, 2018; ISNA News Agency, September 10 and 14, 2018).

Impacts on Family

Regarding the day of the attacks, Ms. Purmand stated: “I lost my husband, and that is really very hard on me. Every day I go to work, I remember that day and everything comes alive again. I remember that day and when I saw Osman for the last time, and then everything was over. That event keeps repeating itself, keeps happening over and over again every day. Every day I remember the dead bodies that I saw that day, and this is not something that will go away easily.” (Boroumand Center interview, January 15, 2021).

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* Holy Defense News Agency (September 9, 2018); Fars News Agency (September 8, 2018); Hengaw Human Rights Organizations Annual Report (2016); Radio France (July 21, 2018); Radio Farda (September 9, 2018); Kurdistan 24 website (September 9, 2018); Ara News (April 20, and September 25, 2016, March 20, 2017); Giarang website (January 3, 2019); Mehr News Agency (September 10, 2018).

** For instance, the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) Peshmerga’s attack on the soldiers’ parade on April 17, 2016 (Ara News, April 19, 2016); the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s attack in Oshnuyeh on June 15, 2016, that resulted in the death of 6 Islamic Revolutionary Guardsmen (Rudaw, June 16, 2016); the attack by the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan Peshmerga on a large Security location in the town of Piranshahr on September 24, 2016, following the arrest of dozens of Kurdish activists that resulted in more than 30 Islamic Revolutionary Guardsmen dead and dozens injured (Ara News, September 25, 2016); the attack by the “Eagles of Zagros” group in the town of Marivan in March 2017, that resulted in the death of at least two Islamic Revolutionary Guardsmen (Ara News, March 19, 2017).

*** Principle 15 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran: “The official language and script of Iran, the lingua franca of its people, is Persian. Official documents, correspondence, and texts, as well as text-books, must be in this language and script. However, the use of regional and tribal languages in the press and mass media, as well as for teaching of their literature in schools, is allowed in addition to Persian.”

**** Principle 19 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran:” All people of Iran, whatever the ethnic group or tribe to which they belong, enjoy equal rights; and color, race, language, and the like, do not bestow any privilege.”