Four rockets fired on Turkey's Zilkan base in Nineveh

The rockets fell in the Faziliye village without causing any casualties.

Wladimir van Wilgenburg 2022/10/09 00:24

he rockets were reportedly fired from the Al-Shallalat area (Photo: submitted to Kurdistan 24)

Turkey Bashiqa Turkish army in Iraq Iraq Turkey PMF Zilkan Base

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Peshmerga sources reported that Turkey's Zilkan base came under attack with four missiles.

The rockets were reportedly fired from the Al-Shallalat area, considered the gateway into Mosul. The rockets fell in the Faziliye village without causing any casualties.

The Shiite Ahrar al-Iraq group announced responsibility for the missile attack, and claimed it was a response to Turkey’s intervention in Iraq’s affairs.

Shiite armed groups affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) have regularly claimed responsibility for previous attacks targeting the Zilkan base.

In 2015, Turkey established a base in the town of Bashiqa near Mosul for the fight against ISIS and to train local forces.

At the beginning of the offensive in Oct. 2016, Turkey declared it would keep its troops in Iraq "until the [ISIS] was expelled" from its stronghold of Mosul despite calls from Baghdad to withdraw their forces.

Now that ISIS is territorially defeated in Mosul, Turkey still keeps its forces in the Bashiqa base.