BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran’s Revolutionary Guards engaged in heavy clashes with gunmen on the border with Iraq on Thursday evening, killing three of them and sustaining one fatality, the Guards said on Friday.

A statement on the Guards’ Sepah News website identified their opponents only as “terrorists”. Clashes with Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in Iraq are fairly common in the area.

After Thursday’s fighting, four militants were wounded and fled back across the border into Iraq and one was captured, the statement said. As well as the one fatality, another Guard was wounded.

On June 7, Islamic State attacked parliament in Tehran and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, killing at least 18 people. All of the attackers were Iranian Kurds.

The Revolutionary Guards fired several missiles at Islamic State bases in Syria on June 18 in response to that attack.