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The Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK ( ku, Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê), is a Kurdish
leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
anti- Islamic Republic of Iran armed militant group. It has waged an intermittent armed struggle since 2004 against the
Iranian regime The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran ( fa, نظام جمهوری اسلامی ایران, Neẓām-e jomhūrī-e eslāmi-e Irān, known simply as ''Neẓām'' ( fa, نظام, lit=the system) among its supporters) is the ruling state a ...
, seeking
self-determination The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...
through some degree of
autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...
for
Kurds in Iran Kurds in Iran ( ku, کورد لە ئێران, translit=Kurdên Îranê, fa, کردها در ایران) constitute a large minority in the country with a population of around 9 and 10 million people. Geography Iranian Kurdistan or Eastern Ku ...
(also known as " Eastern Kurdistan" or "
Rojhelat Iranian Kurdistan or Eastern Kurdistan ( ku, ڕۆژھەڵاتی کوردستان, translit=Rojhilatê Kurdistanê) is an unofficial name for the parts of northwestern Iran with either a majority or sizable population of Kurds. Geographically, it ...
"). The PJAK is aligned with the
Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...
(PKK) through the Kurdistan Communities Union, an umbrella group of Kurdish political and insurgent groups in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq.Iran says killed dozens in push on Kurdish rebels
Reuters (August 17, 2011).
PJAK The Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK ( ku, Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê), is a Kurdish leftist anti-Islamic Republic of Iran armed militant group. It has waged an intermittent armed struggle since 2004 against the Iranian regime, seeking ...
spokespersons have repeatedly told visiting media that its armed wing, the Eastern Kurdistan Units (YRK), has approximately 3,000 active members - half of them women - however estimates from academic specialists over the years point to more conservative figures such as 1,000. However,
PJAK The Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK ( ku, Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê), is a Kurdish leftist anti-Islamic Republic of Iran armed militant group. It has waged an intermittent armed struggle since 2004 against the Iranian regime, seeking ...
's capabilities to inflict significant damage on Islamic Republic of Iran forces in Kurdish areas of Iran has by some accounts been significantly weakened over the past decade, firstly due to a relatively large-scale 2011 cross-border campaign that killed potentially hundreds of
PJAK The Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK ( ku, Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê), is a Kurdish leftist anti-Islamic Republic of Iran armed militant group. It has waged an intermittent armed struggle since 2004 against the Iranian regime, seeking ...
fighters, secondly to due to recent increased
Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...
- Iranian cooperation through sharing intel (satellite, drone footage) on PKK and
PJAK The Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK ( ku, Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê), is a Kurdish leftist anti-Islamic Republic of Iran armed militant group. It has waged an intermittent armed struggle since 2004 against the Iranian regime, seeking ...
movements in their Qandil Mountains bases. On the other hand, a recent uptick in Iranian regime repression, imprisonment, executions, and extra-judicial killings of Kurdist activists have allegedly caused an increase in recruits to PJAK and the other clandestine anti-IRI Kurdish rebel groups Komala, KDPI, and
PAK Pak or PAK may refer to: Places * Pakistan (country code PAK) * Pak, Afghanistan * Pak Island, in the Admiralty Islands group of Papua New Guinea * Pak Tea House, a café in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan Arts and entertainment * PAK (band), an Amer ...
. PJAK has been designated as a terrorist organisation by Iran, Turkey, and since 2009, by the United States.


Policies _ structure _ branch

Members of the PKK from Iranian Kurdistan founded the PJAK in 2004 as an Iranian equivalent to their leftist-nationalist insurgency against the Turkish government. It is assumed that the present leader of the organization is
Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi, (born, 1941, Iran) commonly known as just Haji Ahmadi, is an Iranian Kurdish leader. He leads a group called the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), a group fighting against the Iranian government for the creation of an aut ...
, who is said to reside in Germany. According to the '' Washington Times'', half the members of PJAK are women, many of them still in their teens.Tehran faces growing Kurdish opposition
James Brandon, The Washington Times, April 3, 2006
The group actively recruits female guerrillas and states that its "cruelest and fiercest fighters" are women drawn to the movement's "radical feminism". The PJAK is a member of the Kurdistan Communities Union or KCK ( ku, Koma Civakên Kurdistan), which is an alliance of Kurdish groups and divisions led by an elected Executive Council. The KCK is in charge of a number of decisions, and often releases press statements on behalf of its members. The PJAK also has sub-divisions: * Armed wing - Eastern Kurdistan Units ( ku, Yekîneyên Rojhilatê Kurdistan, YRK), formerly known as the Eastern Kurdistan Forces ( ku, Hêzên Rojhilatê Kurdistan, HRK) * Women's armed wing - Women's Defence Forces ( ku, Hêzên Parastina Jinê, HPJ), led by Gulistan Dogan. * Youth and student branch According to the '' New York Times'', the PJAK and PKK "appear to a large extent to be one and the same, and share the same goal: fighting campaigns to win new autonomy and rights for Kurds. The only difference is that the PJAK fights in Iran, and PKK fights in Turkey. They share leadership, logistics and allegiance to Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK leader currently imprisoned in Turkey." About half of its militants are women. The PJAK leadership claims that the group's goals are principally focused on replacing Iran's theocracy with a federal and democratic government which accepts an autonomy for ethnic minorities in Iran. Pjak has undergone several divisions so far. The first split took place in Pjak in 2005, and members of the split, such as (Osman Jafari, Shiva Kargar, Habib Tahmasabi, Yusuf Hatami and....,) founded the Democratic Union of Kurdistan.


Armed conflict and arrests


2004–2010

The Kurdistan Free Life Party, has been engaged in an armed conflict with the Iranian authorities since 2004. Istanbul's
Cihan News Agency The Cihan News Agency ( tr, Cihan Haber Ajansı) was a Turkish news agency based in Istanbul. The agency, established in 1994, was part of Feza Publications, which also owned '' Zaman'' newspaper and ''Aksiyon'', a weekly news magazine. Cihan New ...
claimed that over 120 members of the Iranian security forces were killed by PJAK during 2005.Iran Arrests 7 PKK
, April 10, 2006, Cihan News Agency/zaman.com
PJAK killed 24 members of Iranian security forces on 3 April 2006, in retaliation for the killing of 10 Kurds demonstrating in Maku by Iranian security forces. On 10 April 2006, seven PJAK members were arrested in Iran, on suspicion that they had killed three Iranian security force personnel. PJAK set off a bomb on 8 May 2006 in Kermanshah, wounding five people at a government building. As early as mid-2006, the Iranian security forces have confronted PJAK guerrillas in many occasions along the border inside Iran. Since then, the United States news channel MSNBC claims that the Iranian military has begun bombardments of Kurdish villages in Iraq along the Iranian border while claiming that their primary targets have been PJAK militants. A number of civilians have died. PJAK claims its guerrillas fight inside Iran, and in August 2007, managed to destroy an Iranian
military helicopter A military helicopter is a helicopter that is either specifically built or converted for use by military forces. A military helicopter's mission is a function of its design or conversion. The most common use of military helicopters is transport ...
that was conducting a forward operation of bombardment by Iranian forces. On 24 April 2009, PJAK rebels attacked a police station in Kermanshah province. According to Iranian government sources, 18 policemen and 8 rebels were killed in a fierce gun battle. Iran responded a week later by attacking Kurdish villages in the border area of Panjwin inside Iraq using helicopter gunships. According to Iraqi border guards officials, the area attacked by Iran was not considered a stronghold of PJAK, that appeared to have been the target of the raid. According to the ICRC, more than 800 Iraqi Kurds have been forced from their homes by the recent cross-border violence. 2011 _ 2012 On 16 July 2011, the Iranian army launched a major offensive against PJAK compounds in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq. According to the
Revolutionary Guards The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...
dozens of rebels have been killed. According to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency on 26 July, PJAK militants were killed in clashes in several towns in West Azerbaijan province. Kurdish media reported that at least five Revolutionary Guards were killed. PJAK spokesperson Sherzad Kemankar announced in an interview with the Iraqi Kurdish newspapers ''Hawlati'' and ''Awene'' that the Iranian forces attacked PJAK strongholds on July 16, however PJAK succeeded in pushing back the Iranian military to their original positions and 53 Iranian soldiers were killed in the battle while PJAK lost two fighters. Sherzad Kemankar also pointed out that Iranian forces were carrying out a joint operation with Ansar al-Islam using heavy weaponry. Iranian media later reported that General Abbas Asemi, one of the most senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders in the holy city of
Qom Qom (also spelled as "Ghom", "Ghum", or "Qum") ( fa, قم ) is the seventh largest metropolis and also the seventh largest city in Iran. Qom is the capital of Qom Province. It is located to the south of Tehran. At the 2016 census, its popul ...
along with at least 5 other Revolutionary Guard soldiers were killed in clashes with Kurdish rebels near the Iraq border. The Iranian government blames the PJAK for sabotage attacks on gas pipelines and ambushing its troops, according to Reuters, aid agencies say shelling by the Revolutionary Guard has "killed some civilians and forced hundreds to flee their homes" in the area. The Revolutionary Guard denies the charge. On 8 August 2011, during a lull for Ramadan in the IRGC offensive, PJAK leader Haji Ahmadi, told an interviewer his group is prepared to negotiate with Iran and maintained that Kurdish issues need to be solved through "peaceful means". Haji Ahmadi acknowledged that in some cases compromise is inevitable and indicated that PJAK is willing to lay down its arms. He said fighting may not help Kurds secure political and cultural rights in Iran. However, the Guards resumed their offensive on September 2 and rejected any ceasefire call by PJAK, saying the Kurdish rebels have no choice but to lay down arms or leave the border areas. On 19 September, Iran's ground forces commander, Brigadier General
Ahmad Reza Pourdastan Ahmad Reza Pourdastan ( fa, احمدرضا پوردستان) is an Iranian general serving as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Iran. References External links If anyone poses threat to Iran, Army immediately knocks them out: Top comman ...
, told the '' Vatan-e-Emrooz'' newspaper his forces would finish off armed Kurdish Iraqi-based rebels in the "coming days". The rejection of ceasefire offer by PJAK led to new skirmishes between the two sides. On 2 September, after a one-month lull in fighting, IRGC began a new round of ground operations against PJAK. On 9 September 2011, Iranian media reported that Brigadier General Abbas Ali Jannesari of the IRGC was killed during a battle with PJAK rebels. On 30 September 2011, Deputy Commander of the Ground Forces of Iran's IRGC, Brigadier General Abdullah Araqi announced that after the Iranian military captured the Jasosan heights, the PJAK conceded defeat and agreed to retreat one kilometer away from the Iranian border and to refrain from military activities on Iran's soil and recruitment of Iranian nationals. According to Iranian media, 180 PJAK militias were killed and 300 wounded during the last operations seizing PJAK's headquarters in Jasosan heights in the Northwestern border regions of Iran. On 25 April 2012, Iranian media reported that four members of elite Revolutionary Guards were killed and four others were wounded during an attack by PJAK rebels near
Paveh Paveh ( fa, Pâveh, ku, Pawe , پاوە, also Romanized as Pāveh, Pawah, and Pāweh) is a city and capital of Paveh County, Kermanshah Province, Iran. It is located in a region called Hawraman. The first language spoken by the population in t ...
in Kermanshah province in western Iran.


Alleged Turkish–Iranian cooperation

In 2011, PJAK leader Rahman Haj Ahmadi, in an interview with the conservative activist
Kenneth R. Timmerman Kenneth R. Timmerman (born November 4, 1953) is a political writer and conservative activist who was the United States House of Representatives elections, 2012, 2012 Republican Party (United States), Republican nominee for United States House of Re ...
, claimed that elements in the units of the Turkish military or
Turkish government The Government of Turkey ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Hükûmeti) is the national government of Turkey. It is governed as a unitary state under a presidential representative democracy and a constitutional republic within a pluriform multi-party ...
had deliberately aligned with Iranian forces to suppress the secular PJAK in Iran.


Designation as a terrorist organization

The following countries have listed PJAK as a terrorist organization.


PJAK and the United States

Both the United States and PJAK have always denied any form of ties. Since February 2009, the PJAK is classified as a terrorist organization by the US government, freezing any assets the PJAK has under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting American citizens from doing business with the organization. Officials have cited PJAK's connections to the PKK as the basis for this designation—the US has
proscribed Proscription ( la, proscriptio) is, in current usage, a 'decree of condemnation to death or banishment' (''Oxford English Dictionary'') and can be used in a political context to refer to state-approved murder or banishment. The term originated ...
the PKK as a " Foreign Terrorist Organisation" since 1997 in support of Turkey, a regional ally of the US and fellow NATO member. Iranian media and government figures have frequently charged that PJAK is covertly supported by the United States and its allies in order to undermine Iranian "state power". Iranian officials have also claimed that PJAK attacks come "with the support of America and the Zionist regime" (Israel). On April 18, 2006,
Congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...
Dennis Kucinich Dennis John Kucinich (; born October 8, 1946) is an American politician. A U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, he was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008. He ran for ...
sent a letter to President
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
in which he expressed his judgment that the U.S. is likely to be supporting and coordinating PJAK, since PJAK operates and is based in Iraqi territory, which is under the control of the U.S. supported Kurdistan Regional Government.Kucinich Questions the President On US Trained Insurgents In Iran: Sends Letter To President Bush
,
Dennis Kucinich Dennis John Kucinich (; born October 8, 1946) is an American politician. A U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, he was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008. He ran for ...
, April 18, 2006
From November 2006 to June 2008, journalist Seymour Hersh maintained that the Bush administration was gearing up for war with Iran, and in November 2006 he wrote in '' The New Yorker'' that the US military and Israel are giving PJAK equipment, training, and targeting information in order to create internal pressures in Iran. An Israeli spokesperson immediately denied the claims. Likewise, Ross Wilson, the US ambassador to Turkey at the time, quickly issued an official denial of any kind of American assistance to PJAK in an effort to quell the uproar in Turkey Wilson also sent a classified cable to Washington in December 2007 (which was later released by WikiLeaks) in which he strongly urged the US government to officially blacklist PJAK. In the wake of this incident, high-ranking PKK commander Cemil Bayık asserted in an interview with
Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...
that while US officials had made contact with PJAK, America had provided no support whatsoever to the insurgent group. Maintaining that the PKK was the founder and only real supporter of PJAK, Bayık further stated that "if the US is interested in PJAK, then it has to be interested in the PKK as well", which would contradict the established hostility of the US toward the PKK. In 2007, the Washington Times claimed that Haji Ahmadi, the leader of PJAK, visited Washington, DC in August 2007 in order to seek political and military backing from the US, but only made limited contact with officials and failed to obtain any such support. However, in a statement released on 18 October 2008, PJAK accused the US of having passed intelligence to Turkish and Iranian forces as they conducted intensified bombing campaigns and cross-border attacks against PJAK and PKK bases in the Qandil region. On 4 February 2009, United States Department of the Treasury designated PJAK as a terrorist organization. Moreover, the former PJAK leader Haji Ahmadi has accused the US of fighting the Kurdish rebels alongside Turkey and Iran.


References


External links


PJAK HomepageRojhelat.info News WebsiteFemale Fighters of Kurdistan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pjak Apoist organisations in Iran Kurdish nationalism in Iran Kurdish political parties in Iran Kurdish nationalist political parties Kurdish organisations Iranian Kurdish organisations Militant opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran Separatism in Iran Iran–PJAK conflict Socialist parties in Iran Organisations designated as terrorist by Iran Organizations designated as terrorist by Turkey Organizations designated as terrorist by the United States Organisations designated as terrorist by Japan