Turkey began a military operation at the weekend, supporting Syrian rebels, against the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units militia in Afrin in northern Syria.
(AFP)
The strikes took place on Monday in the Zap
region of northern Iraq, not far from Turkey's southeastern border, the
Turkish military said in a statement.
The army said it was targeting members of the "separatist terrorist organisation" -- Turkey's official term for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The
militants were planning an attack on border security posts and bases,
the military said, adding that the strikes destroyed weapons
emplacements and shelters.
The PKK has
been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, and is
blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.
After
a two-year ceasefire collapsed in 2015, the Turkish army intensified
its military operations against the PKK in the Turkish southeast.
The Turkish air force has regularly carried out raids on PKK rear bases around the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq since then.
Turkish troops also sometimes stage ground incursions into the area.
The
strikes in Iraq come four days after Turkey started a military
operation, supporting Syrian rebels, against the Syrian Kurdish People's
Protection Units (YPG) militia in a bid to remove it from its western
enclave of Afrin in northern Syria.
Ankara views the YPG as an offshoot of the PKK and repeatedly calls them "terrorists".
No comments:
Post a Comment