"Search and screening activities were successfully completed in Operation Claw Tiger, which was launched in Haftanin, northern Iraq, on June 16, 2020. Our hero commandos entered all the shelters, bunkers, and caves in the area and destroyed the terror lairs," read a tweet from the Defense Ministry.
Turkey claimed it “neutralized” 320 PKK fighters. The Turkish military uses the term neutralized to denote persons killed, captured, or wounded in battle. The ministry also said their ground troops entered and destroyed 269 shelters and 53 caves belonging to the PKK, seizing the weaponry found there.
The Haftanin mountainous region lies near the city of Zakho, close to the Turkish border in Duhok province.
The defense ministry’s announcement comes a day after Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani was in Ankara to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who said they discussed “the joint fight against PKK.”
The PKK has not acknowledged Ankara-announced casualties among its own fighters, but claims to have killed several Turkish soldiers, downed at least two helicopters, and destroyed Turkish military and construction equipment. The PKK accused Turkey of wanting to occupy Kurdish territory.
Turkey has pursued the PKK in their Kurdistan Region headquarters for decades, but this summer brought the campaign close to urban centres, conducting airstrikes just kilometres from heavily populated areas. Its air force hit scores of targets in the Haftanin, Zap, Gara, Avasin-Basyan, Qandil, and Khakurk areas, as well as the disputed towns of Shingal and Makhmour, both home to significant populations of refugees and the internally displaced.
At least eight civilians were killed in Turkish airstrikes in Duhok and Erbil provinces. Payman Talib was injured when a Turkish airstrike hit her family's shop in Kuna Masi on June 25. She lost her left leg in the attack.
Two Iraqi border officials and a top PKK commander were also killed in a Turkish drone strike when they were meeting.
A new report by the Kurdistan Regional Parliament catalogues extensive damage caused by the Turkish army and, to a lesser extent Iranian army, incursions into the Kurdistan Region since 1992, leaving a staggering 504 villages empty as their residents fled fighting and are now internally displaced.
Both Erbil and Baghdad have repeatedly called on Ankara to halt its attacks and have demanded the PKK cease using Kurdistan Region and Iraqi territory to launch attacks on Turkey.
