Iran struck the Iraq-based headquarters of Kurdish opposition forces, amid reported discussions between the fighters and Washington over allying in the attack on Tehran.
Kurds make up about a tenth of Iran’s population, and the ethnic group’s other national factions in Iraq and Syria have allied with the US in prior decades to fight those countries’ rulers.
Senior Kurdish leaders denied having made any ground incursion into Iran thus far, but several outlets reported that Iranian Kurdish groups were in talks with Washington, which is mulling arming the militias in order to help overthrow Iran’s leadership.
The strategy is a risky one, though, with a leading Iranian American historian telling The National that it was “a recipe for civil war.”