Seven hurt as two bombs explode in Iranian city

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Two small bombs exploded in the
northwestern Iranian city of Kermanshah on Monday, wounding at
least seven people, an official was quoted as saying.

Kermanshah lies in Iran’s western borderlands which have
simmered with unrest among the Kurdish minority for almost 12
months. Several members of Iran’s security forces and Kurds
have died in street protests and gun-battles.

“The two blasts injured seven people at the governor’s
office and the trade organization’s building on Monday,” the
official IRNA news agency quoted Babek Izadi, head of
Kermanshah’s medical faculty, as saying.

Kermanshah’s governor Hossein Khosheghbal told state
television the blasts caused minor damage to government
buildings and smashed some windows.

“Police and security forces are investigating the
bombings,” Khosheghbal said.

Iranian Kurdish rebels claimed responsibility for the
blasts.

The Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), a branch of the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish Kurd guerrilla group,
said the two bombings were in response to Iranian shelling of
villages and rebel camps in northern Iraq.

“We stated previously that the attacks on our camps would
not go unanswered,” said a PJAK spokesman by telephone.

“We carried out these actions firstly due to Iran’s attacks
on our camps in Iraq and secondly due to the pressure on the
Kurdish people in Iran,” he said.

Government leaders in Iraq’s Kurdistan say Iran has
attacked PKK guerrillas in Iraq three times in late April and
early May.

The PKK, which has been fighting for a Kurdish homeland in
Turkey since 1984, accuses Ankara and Tehran of mounting
coordinated attacks against it and PJAK.

More than 30,000 people, most of them Kurds, have been
killed in the conflict since 1984.

(Additional reporting by Jon Hemming in London)