According to the Turkish Defense Ministry, Turkiye launched airstrikes on Saturday that were intended to target Kurdish insurgents in Syria and Iraq.
This occurred a day after nine Turkish troops were killed in an attack on a Turkish military base in Iraq.
Turkiye frequently performs attacks on locations in Syria and Iraq that it considers to be connected to the PKK, an outlawed Kurdish separatist organization that has been fighting Turkiye since the 1980s.
The defense ministry said aircraft struck targets Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil in north Iraq, but didn’t specify which areas in Syria.
It said fighter jets destroyed caves, bunkers, shelters and oil facilities to eliminate terrorist attacks against our people and security forces and to ensure our border security.
Attackers on Friday night attempted to infiltrate a military base in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, killing five soldiers. Another four died later of critical injuries. The Turkish defense ministry said 15 militants were also killed.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan expressed his condolences on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to hold a security meeting in Istanbul later Saturday, Fahrettin Altun, the Turkish president’s communications director wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced police have detained 113 people suspected of ties to the PKK following raids across 32 Turkish provinces.
Turkiye retaliated by launching strikes against sites that officials said were associated with the PKK in Iraq and Syria. Defense Minister Yasar Guler said at the time that dozens of Kurdish militants were killed in airstrikes and land assaults.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Friday night’s attack and the one three weeks earlier targeted the same base.
The PKK, which maintains bases in northern Iraq, is considered a terror organization by Turkiye’s Western allies, including the US Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.
