Iran claims killing of separatist linked to Israel

Iranian state media on Wednesday said intelligence services killed a member of a separatist group, which it accuses of links to Israel, and arrested two others in the country's northwest.

"Intelligence service agents killed one of the main members of this terrorist group, and two others were arrested," state television reported, adding that their weapons had been seized.

It said they were detected trying to enter Iran's West Azerbaijan province from northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, where several exiled Iranian Kurdish groups are based, "with the aim of causing riots, terror and insecurity".

It did not specify what group the members belonged to, only that it was a "group affiliated with the Zionist regime", referring to its arch-nemesis Israel.

Israel launched strikes on military sites in Iran on Saturday, in response to Tehran's October 1 missile attack that followed the killing of Iran-backed militant leaders and a Revolutionary Guards commander.

After the 1979 revolution in Iran, the Islamic republic has made support for the Palestinian cause one of the pillars of its foreign policy.

Iran has regularly accused Kurdish groups in Iraq of staging cross-border attacks and, since 2022, of fuelling the protests sparked by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.

Iran in January said it carried out strikes on what it said was the "headquarters of the Zionist regime's spies" in northern Iraq, referring to Israel's Mossad spy agency.