"The goal to overthrow the Iranian government and replace it with a more democratic system has been shared by several groups throughout several decades. Initially, the MEK (Mujahideen e Khalq, Peoples Mujahedin of Iran) organised themselves in the 1970s against the government leading to an armed conflict. The conflict is still on-going due to the entrance of PJAK (Parti Jiyani Azadi Kurdistan, The Free Life Party of Kurdistan) and Jondollah (God’s Army) in the mid-2000s.

Following the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’(IRGC) major offensive against PJAK in north-western Iran and the border regions in Iraq in 2011, through which the IRGC succeeded in driving PJAK from Iranian soil, the conflict between the Government of Iran and PJAK was not active in 2012. Only one minor clash in the Iraqi border region was reported."

Source: Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Date of retrieval: 2013-07-27) UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia, Uppsala University