Iran says deputy chief of Kurdish rebel group killed

Iranian forces have killed the deputy commander of Iraq-based Kurdish rebel group PJAK, the Islamic republic's elite Revolutionary Guards said in a statement on Wednesday. "Majid Kavian, deputy commander of the terrorist (the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan) PJAK group, with the alias of Samakou Sarhaldan was killed on Saturday," September 3, the Guards said on its website Sepahnews. The statement did not mention under what circumstances Kavian was killed. In July, Iran launched a major offensive against PJAK rebels, shelling districts around Iraq's border for weeks but halted it during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan to give the rebels a chance to withdraw from border areas. The Guards re-launched the offensive on September 2, with their operations officer Colonel Hamid Ahmadi saying the fighting would "continue until all counter-revolutionaries, rebels and terrorists have been cleared away."