Two high-ranking border guards killed in Turkish drone strike against Iraq’s Kurdistan region
Two high-ranking Iraqi border guards have lost their lives when a Turkish unmanned aerial vehicle launched an attack in the country’s Kurdistan region, where Ankara has been targeting the hideouts of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group.
The Iraqi Security Media Cell, in a statement published by the official Iraqi News Agency, announced that the strike killed two border guard battalion commanders and the driver of their vehicle in the Sidakan district of the region on Tuesday.
Ihsan Chalabi, the mayor of Sidakan, told Kurdish-language Rudaw television news network that the drone targeted “Iraqi border guard commanders while they were in meetings with PKK fighters.”
A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, later told Iraq’s Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network that the Turkish drone strike killed five Iraqi border guards, including two officers, as well as 10 PKK militants. Five civilians were wounded in the air raid as well.
The Turkish military started its ground campaign, dubbed Claw-Tiger Operation, against PKK positions in northern Iraq on July 17. Claw-Eagle Operation, the air campaign, had begun two days earlier.
Turkish ground and air forces frequently carry out operations against PKK positions in the country as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.
A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.
More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group.
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