Monitoring Desk
BAGHDAD: A Turkish drone strike killed two Yazidi fighters associated with the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq on Wednesday, the second major action this week, said Iraqi Kurdish officials.
Both drone strikes were carried out in the Sinjar district, one of the heartlands of the non-Muslim Yazidi minority of Iraq, which endured massacres and sex slavery during the brutal rule of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in 2014.
The drone strikes targeted the Sinjar Resistance Units, a locally recruited militia affiliated with both Iraq’s Shiite-led paramilitary force Hashed al-Shaabi and the PKK, with whom it fought against the jihadists.
Turkish military drone strikes in northern Iraq
“A Turkish military drone struck a car carrying a (militia) security official along with his bodyguard” in the Sinjar district, killing both, the counter-terrorism services of the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq said in a statement.
On Monday, a similar strike killed three fighters of the militia in their car in the Sinjar region.
Banned by Turkey for waging a brutal insurgency in Kurdish-populated areas that have claimed thousands of lives since 1984.
In northern Iraq, Turkey has dozens of military facilities for use in its war against the PKK and has carried out strikes targeting the group in northern Iraq.
Last month, the PKK stated it was temporarily halting its operations following the deadliest February 6 earthquake that jolted Turkey and neighbouring Syria.
The Sinjar district lies outside the historic boundaries of the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, but its Yazidi population is Kurdish-speaking.
