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2022-05-22 Iraq
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Who is the new militant group targeting a Turkish base with drones? - analysis
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 [JPost] The creation of a new "group" called Ahrar Sinjar may be an excuse to strike Turkey now, alleging to be responding to other Turkish attacks.
A group calling itself Ahrar Sinjar claimed to carry out a drone attack on a Turkish base in northern Iraq on Sunday. According to Iranian media, the attack targeted a Turkish base at Bashiqa, east of Mosul, and involved "six kamikaze drones." Other reports said four drones were used and that one struck the base.
THE ZILKAN BASE - THE CROWN JEWEL
Continued from Page 4
The Turkish base, sometimes called the Zilkan base, is located on the borders of the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq and areas of Nineveh province that are governed by Iraqi federal forces. It includes Shi’ite militias and other pro-Iranian groups like the Hashd al-Shaabi Brigade 30 of Shebek minorities.
The Hashd, or Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), is a large umbrella group of militias, many of which are Shi’ite and pro-Iran. Since 2018 they have been organized as an official paramilitary force and they maintain checkpoints in some areas of Iraq. Many of these groups are either directly linked to Iran, like Kataib Hezbollah, or are territorial and minority brigades that secure areas where the Iraqi army is weak. In that context, they can easily fire rockets at US forces or Turkey or Erbil from areas such as the Nineveh plains east of Mosul.
The Turkey base that was targeted near Bashiqa was previously used to support Iraqis who had fled Mosul during the ISIS war. It was considered increasingly controversial by pro-Iran politicians in Baghdad who viewed it as a symbol of Turkish encroachment into Iraq.
TURKEY VS. PKK FIGHTS PLAY OUT AT MILITARY BASES
Turkey has a dozen bases and outposts in the mountains of northern Iraq often that is confined to the border region where Turkey claims to be fighting "PKK terrorists." However, in recent years, Turkey has launched new operations in this mountainous area and has penetrated deeper into northern Iraq, closer to the Kurdish cities of Dohuk and Erbil.
Turkey also uses drones and warplanes to strike at areas in Sinjar and Makhmour. Sinjar is where Yazidis live, people who suffered the ISIS genocide. Makhmour is not far from Kirkuk and is an area where there is a refugee camp for Kurds. Turkey accuses the PKK of having bases in these places, but locals say Ankara has targeted civilians and local activists.
THE SAME DRONES IN IRAQ, IRAN AND GAZA
In recent years, the Turkish base at Bashiqa has come under frequent rocket fire that are similar to rocket attacks that have targeted US forces and facilities in Iraq. Usually, the rockets are 107mm rockets fired from trucks. Pro-Iran militias in Iraq have also increasingly resorted to using drones similar to the kamikaze UAVs used by the Houthis and Hamas in Gaza. These have targeted Erbil, US forces at various facilities and even the Prime Minister’s house.
"We have already warned of the consequences of Turkey's continued invasion of Iraq and its safe havens," reads a report from Tasnim News. Iranian media has in the past reported on incidents like this when they are linked to pro-Iran groups; they get the press statements directly from the militant groups themselves. Pro-Iran groups in Iraq often create new fake names for themselves in order to create plausible deniability, so that the new "group" cannot be targeted because it may not exist — it may be a stand-in for an existing group.
"Our operation was carried out in response to the recent aggression on the outskirts of Kirkuk and Dohuk," the statement by the new Ahrar Sinjar group reads. "These drones hit the intended targets with high accuracy, as a result of which the occupiers suffered material and human losses," the group stressed. Tasnim News reported: "Some Iraqi sources say two Turkish soldiers and a Turkish army contractor were killed in the drone strike."
Rudaw media, based in Erbil, noted that "a drone on Saturday night targeted a military base housing Turkish troops in northern Iraq, killing one person, as Turkey’s offensive against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) stationed in the Kurdistan Region’s mountains continues."
This report does not mention six drones and it appears to link the attack to the Turkish conflict with the PKK. "A drone fell on the Turkish base tonight and injured one person who later passed away," Mohammed Amin, mayor of Zilkan subdistrict, where the base is located, told Rudaw on Saturday. According to Rudaw, the man killed in the attack was a chef at the base who is from the Kurdistan region.
Some posts claimed the attack was in response to Turkish "occupation" and operations in northern Iraq, adding that the attacks would continue. Some of the posters are supporters of Iran and Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq.
One of the posts linked the name of the group to the Yazidi minority in Iraq. Turkish airstrikes have targeted Sinjar where Yazidis live. Some Yazidis are members of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) which Turkey has attacked in the past.
Ankara claims these groups are linked to the PKK. In the last weeks, there have been clashes between YBS and the Iraqi army. Thousands have fled and some believe that Turkey had encouraged Iraq to pursue these clashes. The Iraqi army moved into Sinjar in October 2017 after the Kurdistan referendum, causing Kurdish Peshmerga to leave.
However, the YBS which had been fighting ISIS remained behind. Some sources at the time said the YBS and other Yazidi factions had decided to work with the Iraqi federal forces and also groups linked to the Hashd al-Shaabi. Turkey has pressured Iraq to expel the PKK from Sinjar while Iraq claimed, several times between 2018 and 2020, that "armed elements" had left Sinjar.
Turkey continued to bomb the area, claiming "terror" threats while also levying threats of invasion.
Allegations that the Hashd and PKK have coordinated go back several years; in the time after the Iraqi army moved into Sinjar these allegations only grew.
Turkey has even claimed, back in December 2020, that PKK members joined the Hashd. Daily Sabah claimed at the time that "Sinjar District Governor Mahma Halil said Wednesday that there is no sign of withdrawal by terrorists from the northern Iraqi district, as envisaged by the US-backed agreement, adding that they are joining the Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces - PMF) paramilitary group instead.
"[The] majority of PKK terrorists joined Hashd al-Shaabi. A group of terrorists might be infiltrated into Tal Afar and Kirkuk as well,’ Halil said, Turkish daily Yeni Safak reported." This suits the pro-government far-right narrative of Ankara, which wants an excuse to invade Sinjar. Days before the drone attack a statement [was] provided to Turkey’s Anadolu news agency, also claimed that the "Hashd al-Shaabi supports PKK in Sinjar."
The complexity of Sinjar and the latest attack on the Turkish base could be connected. In late 2021 three PMU brigades: 21, 14 and 33, were sent to Sinjar amid tensions with Turkey. These were a Badr brigade, Kataib Sayyid al Shuhada and a third brigade. Another unit of the Hashd has included Yazidis as part of its Lalish regiment for several years, dating back to 2017.
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Posted by Frank G 2022-05-22 08:59||
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Posted by trailing wife 2022-05-22 15:01||
2022-05-22 15:01||
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