"A 30-year-old man, Rasul Hussein of Zarqat village, suffered wounds to his back, his legs and an arm and is at risk of amputation as a result of shells fired by the Iranian military," Ibrahim Abdullah, mayor of nearby Fankisar, told AFP.

Abdullah said the shelling began at around 4:20 pm (1320 GMT) and continued intermittently into the evening.

The villages lie northeast of the Kurdish region's second city of Sulaimaniyah.

Iranian forces regularly bombard the border with Kurdistan, where the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) has bases.

The PJAK is closely allied with the PKK, which has been fighting for self-rule in eastern Turkey since 1984 and is blacklisted as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States.

In June, Iranian troops crossed into Iraq twice in three days amid clashes with PJAK rebels, a security spokesman said.