U.S. officials have spoken in recent days with Iranian Kurdish militias on possibly striking regime forces in the country’s west, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
An Iranian Kurdish coalition of groups based in Iraqi Kurdistan, in the Iran-Iraq border area, has been training to mount an attack on regime targets as the United States and Israel continue to target regime forces since Saturday, according to the report.
Two sources involved in the talks told the news agency that the goal would be to launch attacks internally by forces opposed to the Islamic regime, which has been weakened by the slaying on Feb. 28 of its leader, 86-year-old Ali Khamenei, and other top officials in the U.S.-Israeli assault.
A final decision has not yet been made on the operation and its possible timing, the sources reportedly said. The Kurdish groups have requested U.S. military support. Iraqi leaders in Erbil, Kurdistan, and in Baghdad have also been in touch with the Trump administration in recent days, they said.
On Wednesday, Iraqi Kurdish sources denied a report by Fox News that a major Kurdish offensive was already underway with thousands of Iraqi Kurdish rebels inside Iran, Israel Hayom reported. Only several hundred Iranian Kurds have crossed the border into Iran, the sources said.
The forces are in talks with the United States about help from the CIA in providing weapons, two of the sources said.
According to Axios’s reporting this week, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke on the phone with two of Iraqi Kurdistan’s top leaders.
The CIA declined to comment to Reuters’ query on the matter, per the report. The White House and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment, it added.
Kurdish forces participated in the U.S.-led Iraq war of 2003 and the battle against ISIS.
A source cited by CNN said the plan would be for Kurdish armed forces to take on Iranian security forces to make it easier for an uprising of unarmed Iranians in the country’s cities.
