Turkish aircraft and drones are striking mainly Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria with increasing frequency, Reuters data analysis shows. Civilians are suffering.
Nidal Mahmoud mourns the death of her husband and daughter in a drone strike in Iraq in August. The regional security agency said the car they were traveling in belonged to the PKK and one of the occupants was a senior member of the group. The family denies this. REUTERS
The strike was part of escalating attacks by Turkish aircraft and drones in mainly Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria, which have since continued, a Reuters data analysis shows. Western firms have supplied critical components for the drones, which Kurdish and Iraqi officials say Turkey is deploying with increasing frequency.
Turkish operations in Syria target the Kurdish People’s Protection Units , a militia that Ankara says is a PKK-affiliated terrorist group. The YPG is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S. ally against Islamic State. ACLED draws information about airstrikes in northern Iraq and Syria from sources including the PKK’s military wing, the Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu and conflict monitors the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Airwars and Liveuamap.
Three local people told Reuters that an injured PKK fighter was receiving treatment at the centre at the time of the airstrike. Two of the sources said the fighter survived. Four members of the PKK-allied Sinjar Resistance Units , who were guards at the clinic, were killed, local officials said. A spokesman for Turkey’s Defence Ministry told a press briefing last month that Turkey’s military operations are “within the framework of our right to self defence” under international law. Turkish armed forces “only target terrorists” and take great care not to harm civilian sites or the environment, “showing a sensitivity that no other army shows,” the spokesman said in an opening statement.
“Necessary precautions must be taken during military operations, including airstrikes, to protect and minimise harm to civilians who often suffer the consequences of such attacks,” the statement said, without mentioning Turkey. The Turkish military, NATO’s second-biggest fighting force, responded by driving deeper into northern Iraq. Military operations against the PKK have strong support among most Turks. Turkey has about 80The Defence Ministry said last month that Turkish forces have “neutralised,” a term usually meaning killed, nearly 39,000 militants since 2015.
One fighter was wounded and taken to Skeiniya medical centre in the early hours of Aug. 17, three of the local sources told Reuters. The airstrikes hit the centre shortly after his admission, these sources said. The health centre was the only medical facility in the area. It employed at least 11 medical and service staff and had a laboratory, an X-ray facility, and the capacity to perform minor surgeries. Originally a school, the centre had been transformed into a medical facility operated by the Sinjar self-governing local authorities. It provided medical care to fighters of the Sinjar Resistance Units, the Iraqi army and civilians.
Reuters showed Zwijnenburg the footage of the red crescent symbol on the wall of the medical centre. He said that in his view, the drone operator should have been able to see the symbol. As Schlier Namiq, a Kurdish woman, was preparing breakfast at her home in the village of Tuta Qal in May last year, she heard a bang. She thought at first it came from the hot oven where she was baking bread. Then her husband Aram Kakakhan, the village mayor, got a call from a shepherd who was tending his animals nearby. There had been a drone strike.
Across northern Iraq, local people say they are powerless to prevent armed groups setting up in their villages and districts. And they fear that turning down requests for assistance from armed groups could put their lives in danger. On the day she laid her husband to rest, Namiq moved to the Iraqi city of Chamchamal about 40 km away out of concern for the safety of her family. It is the third time she has been displaced. The first was in 1988 after Saddam Hussein ordered a gas attack on Iraq’s Kurdish community. Namiq lost many family members then. But this latest displacement was the hardest, she said.Schlier Namiq has moved to a new home in the Iraqi city of Chamchamal, Sulimaniaya.
Reuters also analysed data collected by the International Crisis Group, an organisation that advocates for peace. Crisis Group’s data shows that the conflict in Iraq has killed 177 members of Turkish security forces, 1,293 PKK fighters and 101 civilians between July 2015 and the end of June 2023. Crisis Group does not collect fatality numbers from Syria.
The Turkish Defence Ministry said the next morning in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that its forces ‘neutralised’ “three PKK terrorists” in northern Iraq. Mahmoud held a photo of Ryam, her school certificate, a shirt, and a dress. “This is what is left of my daughter,” she said. “She wanted to become a petroleum engineer to improve her father’s living standard.”
A Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle is seen during a demonstration flight at Teknofest aerospace and technology festival in Baku, Azerbaijan, in May 2022. REUTERS/Aziz Karimov “Our government has started putting a plan together to protect the Iraqi borders, such as deploying thousands of border guards and establishing joint security committees that work with the Turkish side.”
Many of the strikes are carried out by armed drones, including the Bayraktar TB2, according to local officials in Iraq and weapons experts. “Without these types of sensors drones as we know them wouldn’t work,” said Kelsey Gallagher, a researcher with Project Ploughshares, a Canadian peace research institute.
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