Kermanshah

Kermanshah is the capital of Kermanshah Province in western Iran, bordering Iraq to the west. One of Iran's four Kurdish-majority provinces alongside Kurdistan, Ilam, and West Azerbaijan, the city holds a population of roughly 950,000. Its proximity to Iraq made it a recurring flashpoint in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, during which the province suffered repeated cross-border strikes.

Kermanshah has emerged as one of the most affected provinces in the Iran-Israel-US Conflict 2026, with Hengaw documenting a wave of wartime repression across its Kurdish population. By late March 2026, more than 300 Kurdish detainees had been arrested across five border provinces including Kermanshah, in a crackdown that received almost no international coverage.

The province sits at the intersection of Iran's Kurdish question and its wartime security posture. Hengaw's sixth report recorded 1,480 military personnel killed across more than 240 targeted bases in the four Kurdish-majority provinces, alongside 98 civilians, illustrating how the conflict weighs unevenly on minority border regions. Whether the arrests signal a crackdown on Kurdish political networks or are purely security-driven remains an open question.