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29 March 2024

Turk planes hit PKK targets in Iraq

Published
By Reuters
 

Turkish war planes bombed Kurdish separatist PKK rebels in northern Iraq overnight but there were no casualties, a security spokesman for Iraq's Kurdistan region said on Monday.

Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga security forces, said the strikes occurred in a remote part of Dahuk province near the border with Turkey.

"There were no casualties," Yawar said.

Over the past week dozens of Turkish F-16 war planes have launched bombing raids against suspected Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) positions deep inside northern Iraq.

The air strikes are part of a wider military operation, backed by attack helicopters, tanks and artillery, against the PKK in restive southeast Turkey.

Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of 40,000 people since 1984, when the group took up arms to fight for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey. Ankara, like the European Union and the United States, considers the group a terrorist organisation.