BEIRUT – The militant Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) has claimed a new attack against Iranian troops as a tenuous ceasefire between the PKK-affiliated group and Tehran continues to disintegrate.

PJAK’s armed wing, the East Kurdistan Defense Units (YRK), issued a statement Thursday that its fighters had killed 12 Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) troops outside the western Iranian town of Sanandaj, the main city for the country’s Kurdish minority population.

“[The operation] was a response to the Iranian authorities’ execution of a Kurdish political activist days ago,” the statement added, in reference to the August 9 execution of Sirvan Najavi—who was accused of collaborating with PJAK—in Tabriz Central Prison.  

PJAK claimed that its latest attack had targeted an IRGC base near the mountainous Shaho area in the Hewraman district of Iran’s Kurdistan province, which lies along the border with Iraq.