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| The Grand Turk |
| PKK claims 42 fighters, 417 Turkish forces, killed in recent clashes |
| 2015-08-30 |
| [Rudaw] The armed wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) released its corpse count from the recent festivities with Turkish government forces, claiming they killed 417 Turkish soldiers and coppers and lost 42 fighters in skirmishes and air raids. The PKK's People's Defence Forces, also known as HPG, said in a statement released Friday that, since the outbreak of the July 24 festivities, the Turkish government launched 62 offensives against the group and in return HPG launched 191 offensives inside the country. Turkish officials released different numbers for casualties. Ankara claimed Turkish security forces had killed 814 PKK fighters, mainly in air attacks in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... also confirmed that 60 soldiers and coppers were killed by the PKK. The Turkish government reignited a war with the PKK after the rebels grabbed credit for the deaths of two army officers in late July. The fighting has ended a 2013 ceasefire that was meant to resolve a three-decade conflict in which some 40,000 people have been killed. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #4 One other thing to add - of those civilians, the majority were killed by Turks. But the PKK did some as well - prior to Ocalan's change of heart, they were typical bloody Marxists, not above killing their own to generate controversy that they could then exploit. The PKK arent choirboys - some of them are tustworthy, but you really need to put in the leg work to find out which ones are. Since OIF, we abandoned a lot of the covert stuff in the Kurdish region -- due to politics to retain a central Iraq government at first, and now to keep from offending the Turks and Iranians who have significant Kurdish majority areas contiguous to defacto Kurdistan (Iraq). That was a mistake, because we no longer have the field operations in place, nor the people, nor the leadership that is capable of developing the area. Just look at those pathetic attempts to make a "Syrian Opposition" as an example. Blame for this goes to both Bush and Obama - but mainly Erdogan and his pressure and backstab during OIF-I. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2015-08-30 15:15 |
| #3 Thank you for that useful perspective, OldSpook. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2015-08-30 12:42 |
| #2 One other thing to note: a three-decade conflict in which some 40,000 people have been killed. 80% or more of which are Kurdish civilians. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2015-08-30 11:45 |
| #1 Divide Kurdish reports of Turk casualties by a factor of 4 or so. Divide Turkish reports of Kurdish casualties by 10. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2015-08-30 11:44 |