ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Turkish drone targeted a vehicle transporting members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province, resulting in casualties, Erbil-based counterterrorism forces reported on Saturday.
Erbil-based Kurdistan CT said on Facebook that at around 5:30 pm on Saturday a Turkish drone targeted a vehicle transporting PKK members near Miska and Dargale villages in Kani Masi subdistrict in Duhok province, killing three, including a high-ranking official.
Neither PKK nor its affiliated media agencies have reported the attack.
The PKK is an armed group that for decades has fought for the rights of Kurds in Turkey. It is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, which has launched numerous operations against the group and its alleged offshoots in the Kurdistan Region and Syria.
Turkey has intensified its attack on alleged PKK positions in the Kurdistan Region over the past two weeks, following an attack in front of the Turkish interior ministry’s general security directorate in Ankara. The group’s military wing, the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Turkish defense ministry on Saturday announced that its armed forces “neutralized” six PKK members in the Operation Claw-Lock area.
Turkey uses the term “neutralized” to denote adversaries captured, wounded, or killed.
Since 2019, Turkey has carried out several operations against the PKK in Kurdistan Region’s northern Duhok province. Operation Claw was launched in 2019 in Khakurk. This was followed by Claw-Tiger in June 2020. The third offensive was a ground and air cross-border operation, dubbed Claw-Lightning and Claw-Thunderbolt, launched in April 2021.
Turkey sent its army back into the Kurdistan Region in April of last year, launching Operation Claw-Lock with the goal of targeting PKK positions in Metina, Zap, Avashin, and Basyan areas in northern Duhok province to remove the group from the border areas and cut off its access to mainland Turkey.
In February, the PKK unilaterally announced a truce with Turkey following the devastating earthquake that killed over 50,000 people. The truce did not stop Ankara from continuing its operations in the region, and the PKK ended the ceasefire in June.
