Rebaz Soleyman Saleh, 27, was killed by IRGC gunfire on Friday, July 10, 2026, while he and his brother were tending livestock in the border highlands of Khenireh in Sidekan, Erbil Province. His body was taken after the shooting and returned to the family on Sunday, July 12, 2026.
The killing placed a single family inside a wider pattern of IRGC pressure along the border. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network said the IRGC has increased its military presence over the past few weeks from Piranshahr to Salas-e Babajani, with heavy weaponry and harsh movement restrictions across those areas.
Khenireh in the Sidekan
Saleh was from the Kurdistan Region, and he was in the highlands with his brother when IRGC forces fired upon them. The shooting left one brother dead and the family without its livestock, which the IRGC seized after the killing. For people working the border lands, that sequence matters because it turns a day of tending animals into a loss of both income and remains.
The body was abducted after the shooting and returned only after persistent follow-ups by the family. That two-day gap is the part of the story the family has already had to live through: the death happened on July 10, but the return came on July 12.
The KHRN on border pressure
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network linked the killing to a broader security posture along the frontier. Its account says the IRGC has been deploying heavy weaponry and imposing harsh movement restrictions over the past few weeks from Piranshahr to Salas-e Babajani, a corridor that now frames the shooting in Khenireh rather than leaving it as an isolated incident.
That wider pattern leaves one immediate question in place for the family and the surrounding border communities: why the IRGC fired on Rebaz Soleyman Saleh and his brother while they were tending livestock. No further official action or investigation has been made public in the facts available here, so the account now rests on the family’s recovery of the body and the human cost already visible in Khenireh.
