Bashiqa Turkish base not attacked by IS

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (K24) – Peshmerga commanders on the ground in Bashiqa told K24 they cannot verify the claim that IS attacked Turkish forces.

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced in a statement on Friday that some Islamic State (IS) militants in Bashiqa front, some 15 kilometers (10 miles) northeast of Mosul, tried to “sneak in” to the Turkish soldiers’ base.

General Bahram Yasin, a Peshmerga commander in Bashiqa, told K24 on Friday that there was continuous artillery fire between the Peshmerga forces and the IS militants. General Yasin refuted the claim that IS militants had attacked the Turkish camp near Bashiqa. He clarified the clashes between the two sides only included long range weapons like mortars and DShKs.

“Neither the Peshmerga bases, nor the Turkish forces’ camp in Bashiqa have been attacked…The Turkish camp is about 15 kilometers behind the front line,” General Yasin added.

The commander also mentioned that Peshmerga destroyed two IS vehicles that were heading toward the Peshmerga trenches. That was the closest contact between both sides.

Regarding the clashes between the Turkish forces and the IS militants in Bashiqa, Jabar Yawar, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Peshmerga, stated, “I have not received any official update from our military sources on the ground.”

Brigadier Hamid Afandi, former Minister of Peshmerga that currently serves as a commander near Bashiqa, told K24 that there were clashes along many fronts in Bashiqa. He commented, “The clashes are not like the Turkish media claim.”

“There are Turkish forces on the ground with us, but they are only a few…They share fronts with us; they don’t have fronts of their own,” Afandi continued.

He emphasized, “We cannot verify the number of [IS militants] killed in the clashes based on the Turkish forces’ claim; it’s a long range fire…we only count the dead based on the number of bodies we see.”