[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Turkey launches air offensive targeting suspected PKK locations in northern Iraq
[Rudaw] Warplanes launched multiple strikes in northern Iraq and the Kurdistan Region to target the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Ottoman Turkish Defense Ministry announced early Monday morning.
Dubbed Operation Claw-Eagle, the air campaign is being personally directed by Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. "Our planes are bringing the caves down on the terrorists' heads," the Ottoman Turkish Defence Ministry said on Twitter.
Suspected PKK locations were targeted in Shingal in Nineveh province, and Makhmour, Qarachogh, Mount Qandil, Khuakurk, and Zap across the Kurdistan Region. Fires brokes out across Shingal and other areas as a result of the Arclight airstrike
 ...KABOOM! ...
s.
The airstrikes hit a total of 81 targets, including "shelters and caves" according to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...Qatar's satrapy in Asia Minor...
's Defence Ministry.
"The operation has been launched in order to ensure the security of the Ottoman Turkish people and the country's borders by neutralizing the PKK and other terrorist organizations that have been stepping up harassment and attack attempts against the police and military bases," it added.
PKK-linked Firat News Agency claimed the strikes targeted a refugee camp and a hospital.
"The Ottoman Turkish state has launched a wave of air raids in southern Kurdistan, northern Iraq tonight. The strikes targeted several positions in the regions of Qandil, Maxmur (Makhmour) and Shengal (Sinjar), including a refugee camp and hospital," it said.
Makhmour camp hosts more than 12,000 Kurdish refugees who have fled persecution by the Ottoman Turkish state, largely in the 1990s. The camp has a governing council and an armed force, the Makhmour Protection Units, established in 2014 when Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS) bully boyz attacked the area. The units are believed to have ties to the PKK.
Bedran Pirani, co-mayor of the Makhmour Camp Municipality, told Rudaw that strikes near the camp left several children unconscious, who were then rushed to hospital.
"The airstrikes lasted an hour from 12:10am to 01:10am. They were a large number of unmanned drones and jets hovering overhead," Pirani said.
"The airstrikes was just 50 to 100 meters east of the camp," he said, adding the strikes caused "massive" material damage to the camp surroundings.
The PKK released a statement on Monday, claiming that they suffered no losses in the airstrikes.
"Our forces do not have any activities in these areas," said the PKK, referring to Makhmour and Shingal, reported the ANF "They [attacks] will be responded in the most severe way."
Regarding the airstrikes in Zap, Avasin and Khuakurk, the PKK claimed that none of its fighters were killed there.
The PKK-affiliated Shingal Resistance® Units (YPS) confirms that six of their positions were targeted by Ottoman Turkish airstrikes, adding that four of their fighters were maimed.
Ihsan Chalabani, mayor of Sidakan, northeast of Erbil, said airstrikes targeting Mount Bradost did not kill any civilians.
Reacting to multiple strikes against suspected PKK bases in Shingal, Yezidi activist and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad described her hometown "a war zone."
"Over 150 Yazidi families had just returned to their homes. When will [the Iraqi Government] and the international community apply some courage and political will to resolving security challenges in Sinjar?" Murad tweeted.
Sinune Mayor Naif Saedo confirmed to Rudaw that the strikes maimed at least three members of the Shingal Protection Units, a PKK-affiliated group operating in the area.
One Yezidi living near Mount Shingal told Rudaw the strikes terrified their children but did not result in any casualties.
"Thanks to God, the airstrikes have not caused any human losses among us," the man said.
Turkey regularly carries out airstrikes and ground operations against suspected PKK positions inside the Kurdistan Region. 
|
