CIA reportedly planning to arm Kurdish forces against Iran

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is reportedly working on plans to arm Kurdish forces in an effort to trigger a popular uprising in Iran, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

Sources said the administration of Donald Trump has been holding active discussions with Iranian opposition groups and Kurdish leaders in Iraq about the possibility of providing military support, News.Az reports, citing CNN.

Iranian Kurdish armed groups maintain thousands of fighters along the Iraq-Iran border, primarily operating in the Kurdistan Region. Several of these groups have issued public statements since the start of the war, signaling potential action and calling on Iranian military personnel to defect.

In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has launched strikes against Kurdish positions. The force said on Tuesday it targeted Kurdish groups using dozens of drones.

Also on Tuesday, President Trump spoke with Mustafa Hijri, the leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), according to a senior Iranian Kurdish official. The KDPI was among the groups reportedly targeted by the IRGC.

Iranian Kurdish opposition forces are expected to take part in a ground operation in Western Iran, in the coming days, the senior Iranian Kurdish official told CNN.

“We believe we have a big chance now,” the source said, explaining the timing of the operation. The source added the militias expect US and Israeli support.

Trump also called Iraqi Kurdish leaders on Sunday to discuss the US military operation in Iran and how the US and the Kurds could work together as the mission progresses, two US officials and a third source familiar with the conversations said, as first reported by Axios.

One person familiar with the discussions said that the idea would be for Kurdish armed forces to take on the Iranian security forces and pin them down to make it easier for unarmed Iranians in the major cities to turn out without getting massacred again as they were during unrest in January.

Another US official said the Kurds could help sow chaos in the region and stretch the Iranian regime’s military resources thin. Still other ideas have centered around whether the Kurds could take and hold territory in the northern part of Iran that would create a buffer zone for Israel.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev