Iran shelled northern Iraqi villages on Friday, damaging farms, in the latest bombardment since the Islamic republic began a campaign against Kurdish separatists in July, an official said.

The shelling came as Human Rights Watch accused Iran and Turkey of failing to ensure the safety of civilians while carrying out strikes against separatists in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.

"Iranian artillery began new shelling against border villages" in the area of Qalat Dizah, its mayor Hassan Abdullah said.

"The shelling caused serious damage to the farms of citizens in the villages," he said.

The shelling began about 5:30 pm (1430 GMT) and lasted an hour.

In July, Iran launched a major offensive against separatists from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), targeting their bases in Iraqi Kurdistan along the Iran-Iraq border, and shelling the area for weeks.

PJAK rebels, labelled as terrorists by Tehran, often clash with Iranian forces. Their bases are in the mountainous border regions of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Local officials and the International Organisation for Migration said last month that Iranian shelling in Iraqi Kurdistan had displaced more than 200 Kurdish families.

Meanwhile, Turkey in mid-August began a campaign of bombing and shelling against north Iraq bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), another separatist group that took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey in 1984.

Joe Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director, said in a statement on Friday that "the evidence suggests that Turkey and Iran are not doing what they need to do to make sure their attacks have a minimum impact on civilians, and in the case of Iran, it is at least quite possibly deliberately targeting civilians."

"Iran and Turkey should do all they can to protect civilians and their property from harm, no matter what the reason for their attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan," Stork said.

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