"Terrorist camps and training centres were attacked from Wednesday," with rockets, drones and artillery, the Guards said in a statement published by their official website Sepahnews.

The statement did not name the groups targeted in the strikes, but said they were behind efforts to "disrupt security" in Iran.

Iran had warned authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan not to allow "terrorists groups" to set up training camps close to the border with Iran, the statement said, but the warning "had not been heeded".

The statement claimed the targeted groups had tried to use "villagers as human shields" and asked the "noble people of Iraqi Kurdistan to distance themselves from the terrorist camps".

Ehsan Shalabi, mayor of Sidekan north of Iraqi Kurdistan's capital Arbil, told AFP a civilian woman was killed and two members of her family wounded Thursday when "a rocket hit their agricultural land".

The strike "was targeting the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan", he said.

The PDKI is Iran's oldest Kurdish separatist group. It was banned after the Islamic revolution of 1979 and appears to have resumed operations in 2016 after a long truce.

The Guards said the strikes were partly in response to a deadly attack Tuesday against them in Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan Province.

Sepahnews reported that three members of the Guards were killed and another wounded in the attack on their vehicle by "terrorists affiliated to global arrogance."

On Thursday the Guards said they had killed five "terrorists" in clashes near the western border with Iraq.