Turkish jets hit Iraq, Syria Kurdish posts

Turkish warplanes have hit Kurdish militant targets in Iraq and northern Syria, including shelters, ammunition depots and training camps, the country’s Defence Ministry says.

About 60 aircraft joined the raid on Tuesday night to target nearly 80 posts in three different locations in northern Syria and Iraq, as far as 165 kilometres from the Turkish border, the state news agency Anadolu cited the Defence Ministry as saying.

The jets targeted “terrorist” posts belonging to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish militia the People’s Defence Units (YPG) in the areas of Derik, Sinjar and Karacak, the ministry said in a statement.

Turkey considers both the PKK and YPG terrorist groups.

“Last night, we bombed targets at three separate locations… they could not find a place to hide,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Ankara.

Defence Minister Hulusi Akar separately warned similar raids will continue, in footage shared by the ministry on Wednesday.

A least four people were killed following a raid by Turkish drones overnight that hit a power station near the city of Derik in north-eastern Syria, the UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

There is a Kurdish militant post near the power station, the group said.

The death toll is likely to rise as there are wounded, some of whom are in critical condition, while the raid caused a power cut in some of the surrounding villages, the observatory added.

Turkey routinely targets Kurdish militants in the region, which it regards as an existential threat.

Based in the mountainous Iraqi north, the PKK – a group also designated as terrorist by the European Union and the US – has been waging a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.

The conflict has led to the loss of tens of thousands lives since it started in 1984.

Turkish jets hit Iraq, Syria Kurdish posts
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