ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Three people were killed in a drone strike in Sulaimani province on Thursday, according to local sources. This is the third deadly strike in the past two weeks in the province where Turkey has ongoing military operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
A drone struck a Toyota vehicle with a Sulaimani license plate in the Zalan sub-district of Chwarta, northeast of Sulaimani city, killing three people, according to Kamaran Osman, a member of the US-based Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT). He blamed Turkey.
“One of the victims is a child and had an IV tube in their hand,” Osman said, adding that another victim was burned and their face is unrecognizable.
An eyewitness who said he saw the bodies told Rudaw that “the people who were killed were wearing PKK uniforms.”
Security forces have reportedly removed the bodies.
No group has claimed responsibility.
This is the third deadly drone strike in Sulaimani province in the past two weeks. On Wednesday, a suspected drone strike on a vehicle in the Khalakan sub-district killed three people. On August 23, two journalists were killed in a drone strike near Said Sadiq.
Turkey has been blamed for all three.
Turkey’s ongoing military campaign, aimed at eradicating the PKK, has intensified this summer, particularly in Duhok province where hundreds of troops have been deployed. Turkey’s defense ministry announced on Monday that its forces had struck and “destroyed” 20 suspected PKK targets “including caves, shelters, bunkers, depots, and facilities” in the the Metina, Zap, Gara, Khwakurk, Qandil, and Asos areas of the Kurdistan Region.
CPT estimates that Ankara has conducted over 1,000 attacks on the Kurdistan Region and Nineveh province so far in 2024.
The PKK is a Kurdish group that has waged an armed insurgency against the Turkish state for decades in a struggle for greater Kurdish rights. It is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara and has been banned by the Iraqi government.
Hemin Baban Rahim contributed to this report.
