ALBAWABA - Security and health officials in Kurdistan reported that two people have been killed in an airstrike that was blamed on Turkish authorities.
"Two civilians were killed and another injured in a Turkish strike" on a remote village in the mountainous region of Akre in Dohuk province, claimed a security officer, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
A health official in the region verified the death toll, adding that two people were injured. He did not clarify whether those killed in the strike were civilians or not. Turkey often launches military and air offensives against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq, where the group has maintained a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
Over the last 25 years, Turkey has deployed several dozen military sites in northern Iraq in its fight against the PKK. A Turkish soldier was killed and another injured in an "attempted intrusion" into a Turkish military base in northern Iraq blamed on the PKK, Turkey's defense ministry, Yaşar Güler, said on Saturday.
In December and January, Turkish military facilities in northern Iraq were attacked, killing 18 soldiers. Both Baghdad and the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan have been accused of supporting Turkish military activity in order to maintain tight economic relations.
In October, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed his country will "continue to intensify" its operations against the PKK in Iraq and neighboring Syria, which Ankara and its Western allies see as a "terrorist" outfit.
