As Kurdish defenses collapsed in Kirkuk province on Oct. 16, the top leadership of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), a critical part of Baghdad’s offensive to recapture the disputed areas, received an urgent call from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). According to a senior source within the PMU, there was a request: Dispatch a unit to kill or capture a battalion of peshmerga stationed in the village of Kharabarut, near the oilfields of Bai Hassan and Avana in Dibis. Two senior Kurdish commanders confirmed to Al-Monitor that they were aware of an effort by Iran to hunt down this specific peshmerga, but did not know which Iraqi force was involved.

The peshmerga fighters who were about to be targeted were exclusively Iranian: members of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), an Iranian Kurdish opposition group with the stated aim of fighting Tehran to establish a Kurdish state. The group is a strong ally of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani, and it is seen by Iran as a threat to its interests in Iraq.

“We realized in the afternoon that the other peshmerga around us had retreated,” Saiwan Sahrayi, a prominent PAK commander, told Al-Monitor on the front line near Kirkuk, referring to the events of Oct. 16. "We packed our things and left around 2:30 p.m., but we could see from the distance that our base was bombed shortly after we left.”

The unit that swooped in to target the PAK, according to the PMU source, belonged to the al-Abbas Combat Division (Firqat al-Abbas al-Qitaliyah). While it is unclear why it was chosen for the task, it notably has a commando battalion.