A senior member of the Organization of the Iranian Kurdistan Struggle has accused the Islamic Republic of being behind an assassination attempt on fellow fighter Akbar Sanjabi.

Shoresh Haji, a member of the governing committee of the opposition group – known as Khabat that is the Kurdish word for "struggle" -- told Iran International on Tuesday that the former political prisoner, 49, was injured when a bomb that was attached to his car detonated in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq on Monday. 

He called the attack a terrorist act, and called on the Iraqi Kurdistan Region security agencies to conduct an extensive investigation into the assault.

The political activist, who was severely injured in the left leg and was taken to Erbil’s Emergency Medical Center, had been sentenced to life in prison by Iranian authorities for membership in the Albania-based opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) organization. While on a temporary leave, Sanjabi left the country and settled in Erbil.

In 2021, two political activists and members of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), Behrouz (Rebin) Rahimi and Musa Babakhani, were assassinated in the cities of Sulaimaniyah and Erbil.

Although the Islamic Republic has not claimed responsibility for any of these assassinations, their respective parties have blamed the Iranian government for the attacks.