Ankara, Jan 13 (EFE).- The Turkish military carried out airstrikes on Kurdish militants in neighboring Iraq and Syria on Saturday after the overnight killings of nine soldiers in several attacks.
A defense ministry statement said the airstrikes targeted 29 positions of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), including caves, shelters, lodges, and oil facilities used by the rebels.
On Friday, the ministry reported that a group of militants attempting to infiltrate a Turkish military base in the Claw-Lock Operation Zone in northern Iraq killed nine soldiers and injured four others.
The Turkish army claimed to have killed 20 PKK rebels in the exchange of fire.
The killings of Turkish soldiers occurred in the wake of the Dec. 23 gun battle in which 12 Turkish soldiers and at least 16 PKK members lost their lives.
The conflict is centered around the districts of Mettina, Zap, and Avashin-Baysan in northern Iraq, where Turkey initiated a military operation from land and air in April 2022 and has repeated offensives since then.
The PKK began an armed struggle in 1984 against the Turkish state to demand more rights for the Kurdish minority, constituting about 20 percent of the Eurasian country’s population.
Since then, clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces have resulted in more than 45,000 casualties.
Initially, the conflict between PKK fighters and the Turkish forces was concentrated in southeastern Turkey, where the country’s Kurdish population is most prominent.
However, the Kurdish guerrillas have also established bases in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq.
Since 2019, Turkey has maintained a permanent troop presence in an approximately 30-kilometer-wide strip of mountainous terrain south of the Turkish border with Iraq. The area houses PKK caves, tunnel systems, ammunition depots, and rearguard posts.
In recent years, the conflict between Turkish forces and the PKK has primarily unfolded in northern Iraq, with minimal engagement on Turkish territory. EFE
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