ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish warplanes targeted suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions on Tuesday in Choman and Mawat districts, located in Erbil and Sulaimani provinces respectively, a conflict monitor told Rudaw.
“Turkish warplanes bombarded Baski Beryan three times and Gundazhor district in the Balakayati region of Choman district of Erbil province once at 5:30 am today,” Kamaran Osman from the Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT) told Rudaw.
Osman added that around an hour later, Turkish warplanes on four separate occasions targeted Mawat, a mountainous area in Sulaimani province.
The strikes inflicted no casualties, but “a large area of forest was burned,” according to Osman.
CPT is a human rights organization that monitors Turkish operations in the Kurdistan Region.
Turkey began intensifying its decades-long war against the PKK, especially in Duhok province, in mid-June after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly said he would launch a new offensive this summer. Ankara has deployed hundreds of troops to the province.
Recent Turkish bombardments have also caused wildfires in Duhok province. Turkey and the PKK each blame each other for the many blazes.
Turkish military operations in the Kurdistan Region have killed 344 civilians since they began over three decades ago, CPT said in a report on Wednesday.
In the struggle for greater Kurdish rights, the PKK has waged an armed decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state which considers the group to be a terrorist organization.
