'It's not over': Iranian Kurds in Iraq in Tehran's crosshairs

Tehran has blamed outside forces for the Mahsa Amini protests, and exiled Kurdish groups on whose bases it has rained down missiles and suicide drones.

The roof is caved in, a wall has exploded and broken glass litters the floor at a base of the exiled Kurdish-Iranian opposition in mountainous northern Iraq.

"These are the regime's missiles," said Karim Farkhapour, a leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), with a revolver strapped to his traditional belt.

"The Iranian regime has bombed us three times in less than two months."

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been torn by over two months of protests sparked by the death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22.

As Iranians have vented their anger at the regime, Tehran has blamed outside forces, and exiled Kurdish groups on whose bases it has rained down missiles and so-called suicide drones.

The PDKI's headquarters, dubbed "the Castle", near the town of Koysinjaq, or Koya in Kurdish, looks like a desert mountain fort straight out of an adventure novel.

The movement settled there in 1993 during the era of former dictator Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in the 2003 US-led invasion and executed three years later.