ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Turkish warplanes reportedly bombed the Yezidi village of Khanasor, northwest of Shingal on Monday.
"A warplane, who our friends say is from Turkey struck a base of our YBS [Shingal Protection Units] friends," Khalaf Khudeda, former head of the Khanasor Local Council confirmed to Rudaw English, referring to Shingal Resistance Units.
"The bombing has resulted in wounds but we do not know how many are wounded or if anyone has died," Khudeda added.
The YBS is a Yezidi militia active in Shingal, believed to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an armed group fighting for greater Kurdish political and cultural rights in Turkey and designated a terrorist organization by Ankara.
The PKK has said that while it played a part in the establishment of the YBS, the units' members are solely local Yezidis.
The YBS was established to protect the Yezidi community in Iraq in 2007, playing a crucial role in the fight against Islamic State (ISIS) after it exacted genocide on the ethnoreligious minority in and around the Shingal region in 2014.
On Monday evening, a correspondent for Yezidi news outlet EzidiPress also confirmed a Turkish airstrike had taken place in Khanasor.
The Shingal area was subject to repeated Turkish airstrikes in 2018. Ankara justified its strikes by claiming Mount Shingal (otherwise known as Sinjar) is host to a number of PKK positions.
Turkey killed prominent local PKK commander Zaki Shingali alongside four YBS fighters in an airstrike in August 2018.
As well as the YBS, other militias and forces including the Iraqi Army, provincial police, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Peshmerga-linked forces, Ezidkhan, and Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF) are currently present in Shingal, complicating its security situation.
Murad Ismail, a Yezidi activist and former head of Yazda said his hometown of Khanasor does not want the presence of foreign troops.
“We don’t want Sinjar to become a regional conflict. This is why we ask all armed groups not from this region to leave, let them be PKK, let them be PMU, let them be anyone. We want locals to protect their areas. Enough. We don’t want this genocide to result us not have a homeland,” he said.
Unconfirmed reports about the injury of Mazloum Abdi, commander of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), by the Turkish strike on Shingal were denied by force spokesperson Mustafa Bali, who described the reports as a “psychological war” against Kurds.
Turkey is fighting the PKK and other forces it claims are offshoots of the group, including the SDF and YBS, at home and inside Iraq and Syria.
