Turkish bombers ‘hit’ PKK positions – Reports of dead

Turkey’s Defense Ministry says Air Force planes have struck Kurdish rebel positions, including training camps, hideouts and ammunition depots in northern Iraq and northern Syria.

The ministry said all the planes involved in the operation against positions in Derik, Sinjar and Karajak had returned to their bases without providing any information on casualties, but that the authorities in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan had reported “human casualties”. “.

“Turkish fighters have targeted several positions of PKK fighters”, a Turkish Kurdish separatist movement, mainly in the Mahmur and Sinjar areas (north), the Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism Service said in a statement, without giving a specific account of the casualties.

“According to the information we received, the Turkish Air Force bombed six PKK positions in the Karzoχ Mountains,” which oversee a displaced Kurdish camp in the Mahmur area, according to the statement.

There have also been reports of “strikes” against “two other positions in the Sinjar Mountains and neighboring Syria”, as well as bombings in Iraq’s Sila area, also very close to the border with Syria.

“The bombings resulted in casualties and property damage,” the statement said.

For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights yesterday spoke of a “Turkish UAV strike” against a Syrian Kurdish position near oil wells in Ramallah, in the northeastern part of the war-torn Syria, without mentioning the PKK.

Northeastern Syria is in the hands of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has been repeatedly involved in battles with Turkish troops, also present in parts of northern Syria.

In December, three Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack in northern Iraq attributed to the PKK by Ankara. In August, four Turkish soldiers were killed during operations against separatists in the area.

Also in August, at least three people were killed in a Turkish airstrike in northwestern Iraq, targeting a clinic believed to be treating a wounded PKK member.

The PKK, described as “terrorist” by Ankara and its Western allies, has rear bases and training camps in the Sinjar region and in the mountainous areas of Iraqi Kurdistan, which borders Turkey.

Ankara, which has de facto established several dozen military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan for 25 years, launched in the spring of 2021 the ninth large-scale military operation against the PKK in northern Iraq, with repeated airstrikes and airstrikes.

With information from ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ

Source: Capital

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