The purpose of Turkey’s Operation Claw Eagle-2 was “to neutralize the PKK and other terrorist elements, ensure border security” and to confirm the whereabouts of “our citizens who were abducted,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said in a statement on Sunday morning.
Akar said they found the bodies of 13 nationals, 12 were shot in the head and one in the shoulder, and claimed they were killed by the PKK.
The PKK, however, said the 13 were killed in Turkey’s bombing campaign. In an interview with the Kurdish-language service of the Voice of American on Saturday, Zagros Hiwa, spokesperson for the PKK umbrella group Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), said the area where the hostages were being held was damaged by Turkish strikes, “but I don’t have the exact data of the damage.”
He explained that the PKK had held the hostages since 2015 when they detained members of Turkey’s police, intelligence, and armed forces.
Turkey launched Operation Claw Eagle-2 on February 10 against suspected PKK positions in the Mount Gara area.
The fighting intensified over the weekend. The PKK said on Saturday that they forced seven Turkish military helicopters to retreat after they tried to airdrop troops into the area, according to PKK-affiliated media ANF.
According to the Turkish defense ministry, three of their soldiers were killed and three were injured. They also claimed to have killed 48 PKK fighters, including three senior leaders, and captured two alive. They also said 50 shelters, headquarters, and depots were “successfully destroyed.”
The PKK on Thursday claimed to have killed “at least nine Turkish soldiers,” including a captain and a sergeant. They did not immediately release their own casualty figures, but said Turkey had inflated the numbers.
The PKK, an armed group fighting for greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey, has its base in the Kurdistan Region’s mountains. Turkish forces frequently cross the border to carry out air and ground operations against the group. Local civilians are often caught in the crossfire and hundreds of villages have been emptied during decades of fighting.
