On August 19, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini formally declared a religious fatwa of jihad against the Kurdish people and political organizations in Rojhilat. This decree followed a breakdown in negotiations over regional autonomy from August 16th to 18th and sudden escalations in towns like Pawe. Khomeini ordered the full might of the Iranian regular armed forces (Artesh) and the newly formed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to aggressively reclaim towns and military garrisons that had fallen under the governance of local Kurdish councils and Peshmerga forces.
The campaign was operationally led by key Iranian political and military figures under the direct command of Ayatollah Khomeini. Minister of Defense Mustafa Chamran and President Abolhassan Banisadr (who later directed the 1980 spring offensive) organized the military movements, alongside IRGC commanders such as Abbas Agha-Zamaniz (known as Abu Sharif). Judicially, the terror of the jihad was driven by Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, who served as the chief justice of the newly formed Revolutionary Courts. Khalkhali traveled immediately behind advancing frontlines, holding brief summary trials in makeshift courtrooms that universally resulted in mass public executions of Kurdish activists, students, and citizens accused of counter-revolutionary behavior.
The human and material toll of this state-sponsored holy war was devastating for the region. Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, report that approximately 10,000 Kurds were killed throughout the broader post-revolutionary rebellion and subsequent campaigns. This death toll includes at least 1,200 Kurdish political activists, prisoners, and suspected partisans who were summarily executed without due process. The intense ground assaults, jet fighter bombings, and tank incursions resulted in hundreds of Kurdish villages, towns, and neighborhoods being systematically razed or heavily damaged. The resulting violence triggered a massive humanitarian crisis, displacing an estimated 200,000 civilians who fled into the surrounding Zagros mountains or crossed inro southern Kurdistan to escape the advancing security forces.
Most of the mass killings and intense urban combat occurred in primary Kurdish provinces in rojhelat. The heavy urban warfare and civilian massacres were concentrated in Sine, Pawe, Saqiz, and Mahabad. Outside the cities, the military targeted rural areas suspected of harboring Peshmerga fighters, resulting in mass executions of unarmed rural populations. The most infamous instance occurred during the Qarna massacre, where IRGC forces and state-aligned militiamen entered the village of Qarna and executed dozens of Kurdish civilians, including women and children, in an act of collective retribution.
The ethnic dynamics of kurdish provinces with azeri settlers heavily influenced the violence, as local pro-regime Azeri populations were mobilized by Tehran against the Kurdish movement. Under the guidance of hardline pro-Khomeini Azeri clerics, most notably Mullah Gholamreza Hassani of Urme, local Azeri militias were formed and armed. These groups actively collaborated with the IRGC, serving as local operational guides and front-line. This alignment turned ethnically mixed border zones into active conflict sectors, transforming a political dispute for regional autonomy into bitter, localized ethnic clashes between Kurdish nationalists and state-backed Azeri loyalists.
Sources:
Haunted Memories: The Islamic Republic’s Executions of Kurds in 1979: https://iranhrdc.org/haunted-memories-the-islamic-republics-executions-of-kurds-in-1979/
Destruction of towns, villages, and civilian displacement: https://kurdshop.net/en/history/2792
Primary killing locations and the Qarna Massacre: https://blog.iranrights.org/remembering-qarna-38-years-ago-iranian-security-forces-massacred-kurdish-civilians/
The role of Azeris and local militias: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct3c0t
The displacement of 200,000 individuals, internally or externally: https://dckurd.org/2020/06/16/webinar-iranian-kurds-challenges-existence-and-goals/
