"Three members of Komalah terrorist group were killed during a fight with our intelligence forces two nights ago," the television's website quoted Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi as saying after a cabinet meeting late on Sunday.

He added that one of those killed was "responsible for killing three police a year ago."

"They were planning a terrorist act but it was foiled," he said, without giving further details of the operation.

Komalah, a Marxist Kurdish group outlawed since the Islamic revolution of 1979, has been clashing for years with security forces in north-western Iran, where there is a sizeable Kurdish population.

The clash comes as Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards pursue operations against the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), a north Iraq-based Kurdish separatist group.

In July, Iran launched a major offensive against PJAK rebels, shelling districts near Iraq's border for weeks, but halted it during Ramadan to give the rebels a chance to withdraw from border areas.

The Guards resumed the offensive on September 2, pledging to "continue until all counter-revolutionaries, rebels and terrorists have been cleared away."

According to the Guards, more than 30 PJAK rebels have been killed and 40 wounded in the second wave of attacks, while the Guards have suffered at least 20 casualties according to different reports published in the local media. On September 7, Tehran said that it killed deputy military leader of PJAK.