Ankara, Jan 13 (EFE).- The Turkish military carried out airstrikes on Kurdish militants in neighboring Iraq and Syria on Saturday after the overnight killings of nine soldiers in several attacks.<\/p>
A defense ministry statement said the airstrikes targeted 29 positions of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), including caves, shelters, lodges, and oil facilities used by the rebels.<\/p>
On Friday, the ministry reported that a group of militants attempting to infiltrate a Turkish military base in the Claw-Lock Operation Zone in northern Iraq killed nine soldiers and injured four others.<\/p>
The Turkish army claimed to have killed 20 PKK rebels in the exchange of fire.<\/p>
The killings of Turkish soldiers occurred in the wake of the Dec. 23 gun battle in which 12 Turkish soldiers and at least 16 PKK members lost their lives.<\/p>
The conflict is centered around the districts of Mettina, Zap, and Avashin-Baysan in northern Iraq, where Turkey initiated a military operation from land and air in April 2022 and has repeated offensives since then.<\/p>
The PKK began an armed struggle in 1984 against the Turkish state to demand more rights for the Kurdish minority, constituting about 20 percent of the Eurasian country’s population.<\/p>
Since then, clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces have resulted in more than 45,000 casualties.<\/p>
Initially, the conflict between PKK fighters and the Turkish forces was concentrated in southeastern Turkey, where the country’s Kurdish population is most prominent.<\/p>
However, the Kurdish guerrillas have also established bases in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq.<\/p>
Since 2019, Turkey has maintained a permanent troop presence in an approximately 30-kilometer-wide strip of mountainous terrain south of the Turkish border with Iraq. The area houses PKK caves, tunnel systems, ammunition depots, and rearguard posts.<\/p>
In recent years, the conflict between Turkish forces and the PKK has primarily unfolded in northern Iraq, with minimal engagement on Turkish territory. EFE<\/p>
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