Turkish fighter jets hit Asos Mountain near Sulaimani

The Turkish military in a statement said its fighter jets carried out the strikes late Monday night and claimed to have destroyed 41 “sites” belonging to the PKK in the region.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – The Turkish army confirmed on Tuesday that it had launched a series of air strikes on targets it said belong to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in the Asos mountain in the Kurdistan Region.

Ankara has stepped up its air campaign after the Kurdish group fighting the Turkish state for self-rule killed eight government forces earlier this month.

Since then, Turkey has widened the geographic scope of airstrikes, bombing targets as southward as Asos Mountain in Sulaimani Province.

The Turkish military in a statement said its fighter jets carried out the strikes late Monday night and claimed to have destroyed 41 “sites” belonging to the PKK in the region.

Among the targets were alleged shelters and tunnels used by the outlawed group. No casualties were reported thus far.

Asos Mountain is located near Sulaimani, the second largest city in Kurdistan.

Turkey has been staging an air campaign on PKK targets since mid-2015 when a two-year-held peace talks and ceasefire between both sides dramatically collapsed.

In the past two years, similar airstrikes have displaced hundreds of people from scores of villages. Over the past few months, a number of civilians have been killed in the air raids as well.