Has An Insurgency Begun Inside Iran? & Russia's NATO Intelligence Campaign

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**Mike Baker** (0:42)
It's Friday, the 3rd of July. Welcome to The Presidents Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, violence is surging in Iran's Kurdish Northwest along the Iran-Iraq border, which raises the question, are we witnessing the early stages of an insurgency against the regime? Later in the show, a mystery is solved. After years of drones appearing in the skies over dozens of European countries, a new report reveals Russia may have been quietly mapping NATO's air defense weaknesses. Plus, yet another story of espionage and intrigue. The Trump administration moves against an alleged Cuban-influence operative who authorities say spent years working on behalf of Havana inside the US. And in today's Back of the Brief, we head to Venezuela, where an extraordinary rescue has given the country a rare moment of hope and grace following last week's deadly earthquakes.
But first, today's PDB Spotlight.
Fighting is escalating in Iran's Kurdish Northwest. Over the past several days, Kurdish militant groups have launched a series of attacks on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, and other security forces, leaving multiple people dead on both sides. The clashes have spread across several cities near Iran's border with Iraq, prompting Tehran to respond with heavy artillery, drones, and additional military forces.
On its own, that would not necessarily be remarkable. Iran has fought sporadic clashes with Kurdish militants for decades. But this week's violence, according to local sources, feels different. Instead of a single border skirmish, we're seeing attacks across multiple provinces, multiple armed groups claiming responsibility, and a tempo of violence that raises a larger question. Has an insurgency begun in Iran?
While it's too early to make any definitive statement, the warning signs for the regime may have begun appearing. Let's start with what we know. Earlier this week, two members of the IRGC were reportedly killed in the border city of Paveh in Kermanshah province after gunmen opened fire. Around the same time, attackers struck a police checkpoint in Banay, another Kurdish majority city closer to the Iraqi border, killing two police officers and injuring several others. Then came additional reports of fighting in and around Maravan, Mahabad, Sadashet and Perunshahr, areas that sit along Iran's mountainous Western frontier where Kurdish opposition groups have operated for years. By Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, the fighting had intensified near Sadashet and Perunshahr with Iranian outlets and Kurdish sources both reporting multiple deaths. Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed they had ambushed and killed members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the PDKI, after the group allegedly entered Iranian territory from Iraq. Kurdish-linked outlets, meanwhile, reported that Iranian forces were using heavy weaponry near populated areas. Well, frankly, from the regime's perspective, after killing thousands of their own citizens during the protests earlier this year, killing Kurds isn't exactly a stretch for the IRGC and Basij militia.
There were also reports of drone strikes targeting Kurdish opposition camps across the border in Iraq's Kurdistan region, another familiar feature of Tehran's playbook. When Iran feels threatened by Kurdish militants inside its own territory, it often responds by striking the networks that it believes are supporting them from Iraq.
Now, that's the top line news, but the deeper story is about pressure building inside Iran. The Kurds are one of the largest stateless ethnic groups in the Middle East, with communities spread across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. In Iran, many Kurds live in the countries west and northwest, where opposition groups have long accused the regime of repression, forced assimilation, executions and military crackdowns. Tehran, well, they see the issue very differently. To the Islamic Republic, armed Kurdish factions are separatist threats. Groups like the PGA AK and the PDKI have clashed with the IRGC for decades, usually in remote border areas and usually in bursts of violence that flare up and then die down. So the question now is whether this is another flare up or something more durable. There are several reasons to watch this situation closely. First, the geography. The violence is not confined to one village or one mountain pass. It's been reported across several Kurdish majority areas in Western and Northwestern Iran. That doesn't prove coordination, but it does suggest a broader security problem for Tehran. Second, the tempo. These incidents have unfolded in rapid succession with IRGC personnel, police officers and Kurdish fighters all reportedly killed within days of each other. Insurgencies often begin not with one dramatic announcement, but with a rising rhythm of attacks that slowly becomes harder for the state to contain.