Turkish strikes kill Kurdish fighters

Ankara’s raids on ‘terrorist havens’ in Syria and Iraq likely to raise tensions with Washington

TURKISH warplanes killed more than 20 Kurdish fighters yesterday in strikes in Syria and Iraq, where the Kurds are key players in the battle against the Islamic State group.

Turkey said it had carried out the strikes in northeastern Syria and northern Iraq against “terrorist havens” and vowed to continue action against groups it links to the outlawed Kurdistan’s Workers’ Party (PKK).

In northeastern Syria, strikes targeting the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) – who are leading the offensive against IS stronghold Raqa – killed at least 18 people.

In northern Iraq they killed six peshmerga fighters from the autonomous Kurdish government, usually allied with Ankara, in an apparent accident.

The peshmerga called the strike unacceptable but blamed PKK-affiliated militia who were the apparent targets.

“These problems and tensions are all because of the PKK’s presence,” it said.

The strikes underlined the complexities of the battlefields in Iraq and Syria, where twin US-backed offensives are seeking to dislodge IS jihadists from their last major urban strongholds.

They could also exacerbate tensions between Ankara and its Nato ally Washington, which sees the Kurds as one of the most effective fighting forces against IS.

Turkey’s army said it launched the strikes to destroy terrorist havens targeting the country.

“The operations will continue to be carried out until the very last terrorist is neutralised,” the army said.

The bombardment in Syria saw Turkish planes carry out dozens of simultaneous air strikes on YPG positions overnight, including a media centre, a monitoring group said.

The strikes killed three media officers and 15 YPG fighters – one of the highest death tolls from Turkish air raids on Kurdish militia, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The YPG confirmed the Turkish bombardment and said there were casualties but did not give a toll.

Representatives of the US-led coalition visited the site of the air strikes yesterday, the YPG’s political arm, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said on Twitter. A YPG commander urged the coalition to act to prevent further Turkish attacks.

While the air raids on Syria appeared to hit their intended targets, the bombardment in Iraq instead killed members of Kurdish security forces that are typically allied with Ankara.

The peshmerga ministry in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish government said the Turkish raids killed five of its fighters and one intelligence officer.

Turkey appeared to have been targeting a minority Yazidi militia allied with the PKK and based in the northwestern region of Sinjar.