Click to see full-size image. Source: fb.com/KURDISTAN.CT
Late on October 18, a Turkish combat drone carried out an airstrike on a vehicle in the Yazidi town of Sinjar in northern Iraq.
In a statement, the Directorate General of Counter Terrorism in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region said that the drone strike claimed the lives of two fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Kurdish guerilla group is known to be active in Sinjar and other Yazidi areas in northern Iraq. Some local Yazidi factions are even considered close allies of the group, like the Sinjar Resistance Units.
The Turkish military has been conducting a large-scale operation against the PKK and its affiliated in northern Iraq since mid-April. The operation, codenamed Claw-Lock, is meant to neutralize the remaining cells of the guerilla group in the areas of Metina, Zap and Avashin Basyan in Kurdistan.
The drone strike on Sinjar was most likely a response to recent attacks by the PKK. On October 12 and 14, Turkey acknowledged that two of its service members were killed by Kurdish fighters in the Operation Claw-Lock zone.
The last casualties brought to 58 the number of Turkish troops killed in the northern Iraqi region since the beginning of the operation.
Turkey has been facing some serious political pressure over its operation in northern Iraq. The central government in Baghdad called on Ankara to withdraw all of its forces from the country last July following a series of Turkish strikes that targeted resorts in the province of Duhok. The strikes killed nine civilians.
