Politics

Intensive Turkish strikes in Kurdistan kill civilians, PKK fighters; target refugee camp

Turkish warplanes conducted several airstrikes on Tuesday and Wednesday that targeted alleged positions of the opposition Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Kosar Nawzad 2020/04/15 18:18

Kurdistan Kurdistan Iraq Baghdad PKK Ankara Turkey ISIS

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish warplanes conducted several airstrikes on Tuesday and Wednesday that targeted alleged positions of the opposition Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). According to local media reports, the new campaign resulted in several deaths, including both civilians and PKK fighters, and significant damage to the property of local residents and farmers.

At least five attacks targeted different parts of the Qandil Mountains in the Kurdistan Region and areas near the Makhmour refugee camp, located in one of Iraq's disputed territories, about 65 kilometers southwest of Erbil. Over 12,000 Kurdish refugees live there, either those who fled Turkish persecution during various Ankara-PKK conflicts or their children who were born there and have grown up to have families of their own.

Turkey’s anti-PKK operations in the autonomous region and northern parts of Iraq come after apparent decreased activity over recent months. In March, however, the PKK claimed to have killed over 100 Turkish commandoes active in the border areas of the Kurdistan Region.

The first of this week's airstrikes took place late Tuesday when Turkish fighter jets raided the mountainous subdistrict of Warte, about 75 kilometers east of Erbil. Local Mayor Muslih Balki told Kurdistan 24 on Wednesday that he could not yet provide detailed information about the damage done since the site was too difficult to have reached yet for an assessment.

A second attack took place in the vicinity of Sidakan, about 34 kilometers farther north, near the Turkish border. Sidakan mayor Ihsan Chalabi told Kurdistan 24 that the Turkish operation struck PKK bases near the village of Birkm.

Warte and Sidakan are both subdistricts within Erbil province and have parts of them neighboring the Qandil Mountains, a sprawling range that stretches along the northeastern borders of the Kurdistan Region and is a frequent target of Turkish strikes.

Additional raids struck Warte on Wednesday, causing material damage, said Kwestan Mohammed, the mayor of Rawanduz district, of which Warte is a part. The exact casualty numbers were not clear.

The Turkish defense ministry said on Twitter that they had “neutralized”—a dehumanizing term used by Ankara to refer to the death, capture, or wounding of “terrorists”—four PKK operatives in the Qandil region. The ministry said it had used reconnaissance drones to spot its targets.

In a fourth operation, Turkish jets struck rural parts of Amadiya (Amedi) district, Bamarni subdistrict one local resident told local media outlet Shafaaq. No nearby villagers had been wounded, but their farms had sustained damage.

Ankara has reported it had killed or wounded 16 other PKK members just in northern parts of the Kurdistan Region in the attacks.

Turkish planes also shelled the Makhmour refugee camp on Wednesday, according to the Iraqi military communications center known as the Security Media Cell, which described the operation as a “violation of Iraqi airspace.” The attack killed three civilians at the facility, according to a security source cited by Shafaaq.

The Makhmour camp— eponymously named after a town disputed between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the federal Iraqi government—receives regular assistance from the United Nations. Its inhabitants fled Turkey into the Kurdistan Region in the mid-1990s, a decade of Turkish-led violence marked by extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and depopulation of thousands of villages in Kurdish provinces of the country.

Turkey claims the PKK gets its recruits from the Makhmour camp.

The PKK has said it killed over 100 Turkish soldiers based in the Kurdistan Region in March, according to two statements from the armed group. Both came a day after operations the PKK had conducted in Duhok province’s Akre district.

On March 9, the opposition group claimed its fighters targeted a Turkish military convoy in rural parts of Akre, destroying two buses and an accompanying armored vehicle, all of which carried Turkish commandoes. The PKK also said it repelled reinforcements deployed to the area.

The fighters killed 79 soldiers, the PKK claimed. On March 22, the group said in another statement that its operatives ambushed a Turkish patrol unit in rural Akre, destroying it and two others support vehicles carrying more troops. On that day, the group claims, they killed 24 Turkish troops.

Turkish bombardment of the vast border areas of Turkey, Iran, and the Kurdistan Region have become commonplace since the peace process between Turkey and the PKK broke down in July of 2015. The group originally took up arms against Ankara in the 1980s to demand more rights for ethnic Kurds in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people on both sides.

Over the past few years, Turkey has stepped up airstrikes against the PKK, launching several military operations targeting the group’s bases in the Kurdistan Region and the Yezidi (Ezidi) city of Sinjar (Shingal) near the Syrian border where a Yezidi militia group affiliated with the PKK operates.

Turkish forces have crossed into the region up to 20 kilometers deep in some areas to target the guerilla group.

Despite the current domestic crisis it is experiencing due to the coronavirus pandemic, Turkey continues its foreign military exploits against the Qandil-based PKK and northeastern Syria-based People’s Protection Units (YPG)—whom Ankara considers terrorists for alleged connections to the PKK. Ankara has also deployed its Syrian militants to Libya, acting as mercenaries in another drawn-out, multi-party civil war.

The Turkish government’s belated response to the highly contagious viral outbreak led to its interior minister resigning, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan then said he rejected. According to numbers the country has reported, over 65,000 patients have tested positive for the disease, with about 1,400 deaths so far.

To prevent the infection, also known as COVID-19, from spreading among inmates, Ankara has ordered the release of tens of thousands of prisoners. This does not, however, include political prisoners or journalists whose advocates argue are held on trumped-up charges.

Editing by John J. Catherine