Turkish airstrike on Iraqi refugee camps kills 3 civilians, 2 wounded

Three civilians were killed and two injured on June 5, after a Turkish missile attacked a UN-supported Kurdish refugee camp in Northern Iraq. The aerial attack came days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to “clean up” the district of Makhmur calling it an “incubator for terrorists” of Qandil, a mountain range noted for being the headquarters of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).  “If the United Nations does not clean up this district, we will take care of it in our capacity as a UN member state,” Erdogan had said in Ankara earlier this week . 

Cross-Border conflict 

Ankara, along with Iranian Revolutionary Guards, frequently bombards the Qandil ranges as a part of its ongoing conflict with PKK, which seeks the foundation of an independent Kurdish state. Additionally, since the mid-1990s, it also maintains several military bases in Northern Iraq pertaining to an agreement inked with now-dead Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussain. On the other hand, PKK  maintains camps across Northern Iraq, which it allegedly uses as a base to attack southeast Turkey.

Earlier in April, in what Erdogan termed as Operation Claw-Lightning, the Turkish military laid a ground-and-air offensive against Kurdish fighters in Northern Iraq. Describing the operation, the Turkish defence ministry said that commando forces landed in Iraq’s Metina region from helicopters while fighter jets bombed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets. “Heroic commandos of the heroic Turkish Armed Forces are in northern Iraq,” the ministry said in a statement, without specifying how many soldiers were involved in the operation then.

Increased raids 

The Turkish administration has been engaged in an armed conflict with various Kurdish insurgent groups including PKK who have demanded separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan or to secure autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds inside the Republic of Turkey. Over the past few years, the Mediterranean state has increasing raids into PKK bases into a 30 kilometres range in northern Iraq which it terms as “temporary security zones." In addendum, the country which shares its borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria has often been rocked by explosions in attacks and counterattacks.

Image:HemmBaban/PictureAlliance/DW