Marivan rises up: Kurds threaten the mullahs’ throne

Eslam Mohamed

In the midst of the Iranian people’s revolt against the mullah regime, the fiercest protests came from the northwest of the country, where the masses rose up in the Kurdish areas that have been engulfed by the regime’s injustice for decades.

Unlike other places, some Kurdish areas have seen proportionate armed confrontations between the regime and Kurdish fighters, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.

The Kurdish-Iranian city of Marivan had the lion’s share of the confrontations, and a number of regime agents and soldiers were killed there after the Kurdish resistance caught them in sudden ambushes.

But Marivan’s regime-appointed ruler declined to elaborate, saying that he is “not allowed” to provide information on the number of those killed and denying the deaths of 15 people during the protests.

Amnesty International reported on November 19 that Iranian security forces killed 106 protesters in four days, most of them from Ahvaz and Kurdistan provinces, while Iranian activists said the death toll had risen to more than 200. Philip Luther, Amnesty’s research and advocacy director for the Middle East, called on the Iranian authorities to “end this brutal and bloody repression immediately.”

At a press conference on November 19, Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Ismaili called on citizens to provide information about what he described as “vandals” and to identify the people who “burned banks and government centers.” He also pointed to the arrests of people who sent recordings to the media, saying, “We will firmly confront those who threaten security and burn public capital.”

In addition, nine offices of representatives of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei were burned in the provinces, as they were symbols of the repressive regime and the headquarters of the clerics responsible for supervising the application of the regime’s policies and looting the people’s money.

The protesters shouted slogans including “Death to the dictator”, “Down with the Islamic Republic, we don’t want it, we don’t want it” and “No Gaza, no Lebanon, sacrifice only for Iran,” expressing their rejection of the Iranian regime’s interference in the countries of the region and its wasting their wealth in support of terrorism.

Meanwhile, Iranian leader Ali Khamenei considered the demonstrations “security practices and not popular,” stressing his country’s steadfastness before “the enemy” in various arenas. “To let friends and enemies know that we have defeated the enemy in the military, political and security arenas, including the practices that have taken place in recent days, which were security practices and not popular,” he said.

“We imposed retreat on the enemy in various arenas, and we will certainly make the enemy retreat in the arena of economic war,” Khamenei added, according to the Iranian state news agency.

Bassem Shukri, a strategic planning expert and political analyst, affirmed that the citizens in Iranian cities are beating the security forces with stones, but the situation is different in the Kurdish areas of northwestern Iran. The Kurds are beating security with firearms, as they have armed parties living in the mountains, and the authorities have not been able to subdue them yet. The Kurdish insurgency has been going on since 1925, and now the Kurdish protests are the most powerful.

Shukri added to the Reference that the Kurdish city of Marivan is Iran’s weak side, as it is isolated from the rest of the country, open to Iraq, and close to the Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya. The Kurds on both sides of the border are of the same fabric, speak the same tone, and share the same affiliation. He pointed out that Mariwan is witnessing violent demonstrations and clashes in the suburbs, mountain roads being cut off by gunmen, and the killing of large numbers of Basij and repression forces after large buses carrying them to the city center were ambushed by gunmen from the surrounding villages.

It is worth mentioning that the city of Marivan is located in the central part of Marivan County in Iran’s Kurdistan Province.