One to two civilians, including an 18-year-old girl, were killed and up to four others injured in alleged Turkish or Iranian artillery strikes in the Bradost region of Iraqi Kurdistan on July 10th, 2019 according to local media reports.

Al-Monitor reported that Iranian artillery shelled the Sidakan border area in Erbil province on July 10th killing a civilian and wounding two others.

ANF said both Iran and Turkey carried out strikes in the area that resulted in the deaths of two civilians and injured four others.

Ihsan Chalabi, mayor of Sidakan town, told Al-Monitor: “On [July 10] at 12:10 p.m. local time, on grounds of targeting the Iranian opposition groups in the region, Iranian artillery shelled areas of Barbazin and Dere, and the villages of Dustanan, Zhuzhila and Talan. Unfortunately, a Kurdish girl named Zaitun Qadir, 18 years old, was martyred, and two of her brothers — Ali, 14 years, and Sirwan, aged 23, were severely injured.”

“The civilians were engaged with agricultural work in Dere village when the Islamic Republic of Iran’s artillery hit them. Consequently, all orchards and wild pastures burned and local citizens evacuated the area. We call on both Iran to halt shelling and the Iranian parties to not launch attacks on Iran from our area, for the sake of protecting civilian lives and their properties.”

Mr Chalabi said that Iran has haphazardly shelled the area from time to time, he insisted there were no clear headquarters and bases of Iranian opposition parties in the area.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Wednesday in a statement condemned the bombardment and said it “will not allow its border to be used for attacking and disrupting the security of neighbor countries.”

ANF reported that at 9 am the following day Iran and Turkey continued to bombard the Balakati and Bradost regions throughout the day with howitzers, mortars and katusha rockets aided by Iranian reconnaissance planes.

It was reported that whilst the villagers tried to extinguish the fires caused by the bombardments, hundreds of hectares of land was burnt.

EKurd Daily also reported that a girl was killed and her two brothers injured. According to the source, the Iranian army also shelled the villages of Kudo, Alana, and Gundzhor in Haji Omaran of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The incident occured at 12:10:00 local time.