The clashes took place on Friday evening after the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) rebels slipped into the Bazargan region of West Azarbaijan province on the border with Turkey.

The paper said the dead included a Syrian and a Turkish national.

Last week, it was reported that six members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards died in clashes with PJAK while two border guards were killed by mines laid by the rebels.

The group operates from rear-bases in northeastern Iraq and makes sorties across the border into Iran. It has been involved in a series of clashes with Iranian security forces in recent years.

The rebel group has close links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a deadly insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984.