A prominent political activist from the Kurdistan Free Society Movement (Tavgari Azadi), Suhail Khurshid Aziz, was killed in a town southwest of Iraqi Kurdistan’s Sulaymaniyah province on Sunday, Roj News Agency reported.

Aziz, known as Mamoste Shamal, a historian and member of Tavgari Azadi’s board of directors in Kifri district, was shot dead in front of his house by unidentified gunmen, local police said.

Local police said an investigation into the killing has begun, and Aziz’s body has been sent for forensic examination.

Tavgari Azadi, an Iraqi Kurdistan affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), strongly condemned the assassination of its member and called on local police and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s intelligence service, the Asayish, to launch an intensive investigation to arrest the killers.

“The Asayish must prosecute the killers and anyone who collaborated in the assassination,” Tavgari Azadi’s statement said.

The city of Sulaymaniyah has witnessed several recent unsolved murders, including the assassination of Mehmet Zeki Çelebi, a Kurdish activist from Turkey’s southeast.

Another Kurdish political activist from Turkey, Yasin Bulut, was assassinated in a similar attack in Sulaymaniyah on 17 September 2021. The PKK then blamed Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation for the killing.