Israel and Hezbollah exchange strikes as escalation fears rise

Update Israel and Hezbollah exchange strikes as escalation fears rise
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The sister of Petty Officer 1st Class David Moshe Ben Shitrit, who was killed on a Hezbollah attack, mourns during his funeral at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem on Aug. 25, 2024. (AP)
Update Israel and Hezbollah exchange strikes as escalation fears rise
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Israelis walk near a damaged residential building due to a direct-hit from a projectile, after Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones towards northern Israel early on August 25, 2024, in response to the assassination of a senior commander in Beirut last month. (REUTERS)
Update Israel and Hezbollah exchange strikes as escalation fears rise
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Relatives of Petty Officer 1st Class David Moshe Ben Shitrit, who was killed in a Hezbollah attack on Aug. 25, 2024, mourn during his funeral at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem. (AP)
Update Israeli military announced early August 25, 2024 that it was conducting pre-emptive strikes in Lebanon after detecting preparations for “large-scale” attacks by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Hezbollah said August 25, 2024 it had launched more than 320 rockets at Israel overnight, targeting a string of military positions, even as Israel’s military said it was carrying out pre-emptive strikes against the group. (AFP)
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Israeli military announced early August 25, 2024 that it was conducting pre-emptive strikes in Lebanon after detecting preparations for “large-scale” attacks by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Hezbollah said August 25, 2024 it had launched more than 320 rockets at Israel overnight, targeting a string of military positions, even as Israel’s military said it was carrying out pre-emptive strikes against the group. (AFP)
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Updated 25 August 2024
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Israel and Hezbollah exchange strikes as escalation fears rise

Israel and Hezbollah exchange strikes as escalation fears rise
  • Mikati seeks help from Lebanon’s allies to halt escalation
  • Egypt emphasizes ‘importance of maintaining stability’

BEIRUT: Israel launched a wave of airstrikes across southern Lebanon early on Sunday in what it called a preemptive strike to avert a large Hezbollah rocket and missile attack.

Hezbollah said it fired hundreds of rockets and drones to avenge the assassination of the party’s military commander, Fuad Shukr, in Beirut last month.

Both sides halted the heavy exchange of fire by mid-morning, signaling no immediate escalation.

After more than 10 months of cross-border hostilities, there were fears a large-scale Israeli onslaught could escalate into all-out war.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati initiated a series of contacts with Lebanon’s allies to halt any escalation.

FASTFACT

Fears have spiked since Fouad Shukr’s killing that the cross-border violence could degenerate into all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

He said that “the priority is to stop the Israeli aggression first” before implementing a UN resolution calling for an end to hostilities.

According to his media office, Mikati said that “Lebanon supports international efforts that may lead to a ceasefire in Gaza.”

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry warned of “the dangers of opening a new war front in Lebanon.”

Egypt emphasized “the importance of maintaining Lebanon’s stability, sovereignty, and avoiding the risks of the region slipping into a state of total instability.”




In this combination of pictures created on August 25, 2024,  photos taken from a position in northern Israel show a Hezbollah UAV being intercepted by the Israeli air force over northern Israel on August 25, 2024. (AFP)

In a joint statement, UNIFIL and the office of the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon described the developments across the Blue Line as “concerning” and urged “all parties to deescalate strongly.”

At 4:30 a.m., residents of southern Lebanon woke to the sound of airstrikes and missile explosions.

A resident in the Nabatieh area said: “The ground was shaking beneath our feet, and the sound of falling missiles was deafening. Everyone began asking what was happening.”

A statement by the Israeli army circulating on social media asked residents near Hezbollah’s operational areas to move away immediately.

The message was directed at Lebanese civilians located south of the Litani River.

The noise of Israeli airstrikes merged with the sounds of Hezbollah’s rocket launchers firing toward Israeli military positions, while sirens sounded in northern Israel and among UNIFIL stations in southern Lebanon.

Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport was closed to air traffic.

Shortly after 6 a.m., a preliminary statement issued by Hezbollah confirmed “the initial response to the assassination of Shukr.”

Hezbollah said that its fighters “are currently at their highest state of readiness and will be vigilant against any violations or acts of aggression, particularly if civilians are harmed, as the repercussions will be severe and harsh.”

In a second statement, issued less than an hour later, the group said that “the first phase had been successfully completed.”

This involved “targeting Israeli barracks and positions to facilitate the passage of offensive drones toward their intended objective deep within the entity, and the drones proceeded as planned,” it said.

Hezbollah claimed to have launched more than 320 Katyusha rockets toward Israeli positions.

Targets included the Meron base, theNaveh Ziv base, Zaatoun base, Zaoura bases, Al-Sahl base, the Keila barracks in the occupied Syrian Golan, the UF barracks in the occupied Syrian Golan, the Nafah base in the occupied Syrian Golan, the Yarden base in the occupied Syrian Golan, the Ein Zeytim base, and the Ramot Naftali barracks.

Israeli media reports said that homes, buildings, and a kindergarten in Acre had been damaged, with a woman treated for minor injuries from shrapnel.

Around 8 a.m., hostilities on both sides of the border eased.

A Hezbollah official said that the response to the assassination of Shukr had been delayed due to political considerations, primarily the negotiations concerning Gaza.

Hezbollah said it was keen to ensure that its response would not escalate into a “full-scale war.”

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported that an Israeli political source confirmed “the conclusion of the military operation by Israel and that the situation now rests with Hezbollah.”

The source said that “Hezbollah launched a substantial attack on strategic installations in central Israel, which was successfully intercepted.”

Israeli media said that one of Hezbollah’s targets was the Glilot area, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, where the Mossad headquarters and the military intelligence Unit 8200, along with other strategic facilities, are located.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “monitored Hezbollah’s preparations to attack Israel, and we directed the military to take the initiative in neutralizing those threats.”

He claimed that the army destroyed thousands of rockets aimed at northern Israel and eliminated other threats.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee claimed that about 100 warplanes destroyed thousands of Hezbollah missile launchers in southern Lebanon.

Adraee claimed that most of these launchers were directed toward the northern region, with some aimed at the central part of the country. More than 40 launch positions were targeted.

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation, citing the army, denied that any Israeli military base was damaged.

The Israeli Army Radio said that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke with his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, to assess the developments.

The US Department of Defense said Austin “affirmed Washington’s commitment to defending Israel against any attacks from Iran, its partners and proxies in the region.”

The Washington Post quoted Israeli officials as saying that the jamming systems had succeeded in protecting Tel Aviv from Hezbollah’s attacks.

Hezbollah denied Israeli claims about its “preemptive actions, the targets it achieved, and its disruption of the resistance’s attack.”

The Israeli raids began at dawn and continued until 10:30 a.m.

The targets included the outskirts and valleys of the towns of Ain Qana, Kfar Kila, Al-Lwaiza, Bouslaiya, Rashaf, At Tiri, Haddatha, Kounine, Zibqin, Yater, Seddiqine, Haris, Deir Seryan, Tallouseh, El Qsair, Naqoura, Tayr Harfa, Majdal Zoun, Alma Al-Shaab, Jebbayn, Chihine, Mahmoudiya, Jabal er Rafiaa, Berghoz, Dlafy, Mays Al-Jabal, Khiam and Markaba.

They also targeted Kfar Melki, Iqlim Al-Tuffah, and towns in the district of Nabatieh.

The Ministry of Health reported three Lebanese fatalities, including a member from the Amal Movement, Hezbollah’s ally, and two Syrian fatalities.

Hezbollah mourned two members: Khodr Moussa Sweid, 37, and Hamza Mohammed Zalghout, 32, from the town of Haris in southern Lebanon.

 


Traumatized by war, hundreds of Lebanon’s children struggle with wounds both physical and emotional

Traumatized by war, hundreds of Lebanon’s children struggle with wounds both physical and emotional
Updated 5 sec ago
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Traumatized by war, hundreds of Lebanon’s children struggle with wounds both physical and emotional

Traumatized by war, hundreds of Lebanon’s children struggle with wounds both physical and emotional
  • In the war that has escalated since September, Israeli airstrikes have increasingly hit residential areas around Lebanon
  • With more strikes on homes and in residential areas, doctors are seeing more children affected by the violence
BEIRUT: Curled up in his father ‘s lap, clinging to his chest, Hussein Mikdad cried his heart out. The 4-year-old kicked his doctor with his intact foot and pushed him away with the arm that was not in a cast. “My Dad! My Dad!” Hussein said. “Make him leave me alone!” With eyes tearing up in relief and pain, the father reassured his son and pulled him closer.
Hussein and his father, Hassan, are the only survivors of their family after an Israeli airstrike last month on their Beirut neighborhood. The strike killed 18 people, including his mother, three siblings and six relatives.
“Can he now shower?” the father asked the doctor.
Ten days after surgery, doctors examining Hussein’s wounds said the boy is healing properly. He has rods in his fractured right thigh and stitches that assembled his torn tendons back in place on the right arm. The pain has subsided, and Hussein should be able to walk again in two months — albeit with a lingering limp.
A prognosis for Hussein’s invisible wounds is much harder to give. He is back in diapers and has begun wetting his bed. He hardly speaks and has not said a word about his mother, two sisters and brother.
“The trauma is not just on the muscular skeletal aspect. But he is also mentally hurt,” Imad Nahle, one of Hussein’s orthopedic surgeons, said.
Israel said, without elaborating, that the strike on the Mikdad neighborhood struck a Hezbollah target. In the war that has escalated since September, Israeli airstrikes have increasingly hit residential areas around Lebanon. Israel accuses the Lebanese militant group of hiding its capabilities and fighters among civilians. It vows to cripple Hezbollah, which began firing into northern Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza.
But children have been caught in the midst.
With more strikes on homes and in residential areas, doctors are seeing more children affected by the violence. More than 100 children have been killed in Lebanon in the past six weeks and hundreds injured. And of the 14,000 wounded since last year, around 10 percent are children. Many have been left with severed limbs, burned bodies, and broken families — scars that could last for a lifetime.
Ghassan Abu Sittah, a renowned British-Palestinian surgeon who is also treating Hussein, sees that long road ahead. This is his worry: “It leaves us with a generation of physically wounded children, children who are psychologically and emotionally wounded.”
‘What do they want from us?’

At the American University of Beirut Medical Center, which is receiving limited cases of war casualties, Nahle said he operated on five children in the past five weeks — up from no cases before. Most were referred from south and eastern Lebanon.
A few miles away, at the Lebanese Hospital Geitaoui, one of the country’s largest burns centers increased its capacity by nearly 180 percent since September so it could accommodate more war wounded, its medical director Naji Abirached said. About a fifth of the newly admitted patients are children.
In one of the burn center’s ICU units lies Ivana Skakye. She turned 2 in the hospital ward last week. Ivana has been healing from burns she sustained following an Israeli airstrike outside their home in southern Lebanon on Sept. 23. Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes that day in different parts of Lebanon, making it the deadliest day of the war so far. More than 500 people were killed.
Six weeks later, the tiny Ivana remains wrapped in white gauze from head to toe except her torso. She sustained third-degree burns over 40 percent of her body. Her hair and head, her left side all the way to her legs, both her arms and her chest were burned. Her family home was damaged, its ceiling set afire. The family’s valuables, packed in their car as they prepared to leave, were also torched. Ivana’s older sister, Rahaf, 7, has recovered faster from burns to her face and hands.
Fatima Zayoun, their mother, was in the kitchen when the explosion hit. Zayoun jumped up to grab the girls, who were playing on the terrace.
It was, Zayoun said, “as if something lifted me up so that I can grab my kids. I have no idea how I managed to pull them in and throw them out of the window. She spoke from the ICU burns unit. “They were not on fire, but they were burned. Black ash covered them. ... (Ivana) was without any hair. I told myself, `That is not her.’”
Now, Ivana’s wound dressings are changed every two days. Her doctor, Ziad Sleiman, said she could be discharged in a few days. She’s back again to saying “Mama” and “Bye — shorthand for wanting to go out.
Like Hussein, though, Ivana has no home to return to. Her parents fear collective shelters could cause an infection to return.
After seeing her kids “sizzling on the floor,” Zayoun, 35, said that even if their home is repaired, she wouldn’t want to return. “I saw death with my own eyes,” she said.
Zayoun was 17 last time Israel and Hezbollah were at war, in 2006. Displaced with her family then, she said she almost enjoyed the experience, riding out of their village in a truck full of their belongings, mixing with new people, learning new things. They returned home when the war was over.
“But this war is hard. They are hitting everywhere,” she said. “What do they want from us? Do they want to hurt our children? We are not what they are looking for.”
Attacks at home can be hard for kids to deal with
Abu Sittah, the reconstructive surgeon, said most of the children’s injuries are from blasts or collapsing rubble. That attack on a space they expect to be inviolable can have lingering effects.
“Children feel safe at home,” he said. “The injury makes them for the first time lose that sense of security — that their parents are keeping them safe, that their homes are invincible, and suddenly their homes become not so.”
One recent morning, children were playing in the courtyard of a vocational school-turned-shelter in Dekwaneh, north of Beirut, where nearly 3,000 people displaced from the south are now living. The parents were busy with an overflowing bathroom that serves one floor in a building that houses nearly 700 people.
Only playtime brings the children, from different villages in the south, together. They were divided in two teams, ages ranging between 6 and 12, competing to get the handkerchief first. A tiny girl hugged and held hands with strangers visiting the shelter. “I am from Lebanon. Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered in their ears.
The game turned rowdy when two girls in their early teens got into a fist fight. Pushing and shoving began. Tears and tantrums followed. The tiny girl walked away in a daze.
Maria Elizabeth Haddad, manager of the psychosocial support programs in Beirut and neighboring areas for the US-based International Medical Corps, said parents in shelters reported signs of increased anxiety, hostility and aggression among kids. They talk back to parents and ignore rules. Some have developed speech impediments and clinginess. One is showing early signs of psychosis.
“There are going to be residual symptoms when they grow up, especially related to attachment ties, to feeling of security,” Haddad said. “It is a generational trauma. We have experienced it before with our parents. ... They don’t have stability or search for (extra) stability. This is not going to be easy to overcome.”
New phases of life begin

Children represent more than a third of over 1 million people displaced by the war in Lebanon and following Israeli evacuation notices, according to UN and government estimates (more than 60,000 people have been displaced from northern Israel). That leaves hundreds of thousands in Lebanon without schooling, either because their schools were inaccessible or have been turned into shelters.
Hussein’s father says he and his son must start together from scratch. With help from relatives, the two have found a temporary shelter in a home — and, for the father, a brief sense of relief. “I thank God he is not asking for or about his mother and his siblings,” said Hassan Mikdad, the 40-year-old father.
He has no explanation for his son, who watched their family die in their home. His two sisters — Celine, 10, and Cila, 14 — were pulled out of the rubble the following day. His mother, Mona, was pulled out three days later. She was locked in an embrace with her 6-year-old son, Ali.
The strike on Oct. 21 also caused damage across the street, to one of Beirut’s main public hospitals, breaking solar panels and windows in the pharmacy and the dialysis unit. The father survived because he had stepped out for coffee. He watched his building crumble in the late-night airstrike. He also lost his shop, his motorcycles and car — all the evidence of his 16 years of family life.
His friend, Hussein Hammoudeh, arrived on the scene to help sift through rubble. Hammoudeh spotted young Hussein Mikdad’s fingers in the darkness in an alley behind their home. At first he thought they were severed limbs — until he heard the boy’s screams. He dug out Hussein with glass lodged in his leg and a metal bar in his shoulder. Hammoudeh said he didn’t recognize the boy. He held the child’s almost-severed wrist in place.
In the hospital now, Hussein Mikdad sipped a juice as he listened to his father and his friend. His father turned to him, asking if he wanted a Spider-Man toy — an effort to forestall a new outburst of tears. He said he buys Hussein a toy each day.
“What I am living through seems like a big lie. ...The mind can’t comprehend,” he said. “I thank God for the blessing that is Hussein.”

Portraits of pain: smuggled Palestinian art shows trauma of Gaza

Portraits of pain: smuggled Palestinian art shows trauma of Gaza
Updated 46 min 58 sec ago
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Portraits of pain: smuggled Palestinian art shows trauma of Gaza

Portraits of pain: smuggled Palestinian art shows trauma of Gaza
  • Artists in Gaza, for six months, handed over paintings and other artworks to people leaving Gaza through its Rafah border crossing with Egypt

Amman: When war erupted in Gaza, Palestinian artists had only one way to share their work expressing the harrowing reality of the conflict: having it smuggled out of the besieged territory.
For six months, they handed over paintings and other artworks to people leaving Gaza through its Rafah border crossing with Egypt until Israeli ground forces closed it in May when they took control of the frontier.
“The paintings document the brutality of war and massacres... carrying pain and sorrow, but also embodying an unwavering resolve,” said Mohammad Shaqdih.
He is deputy director of Darat Al-Funun, an art gallery in the Jordanian capital Amman exhibiting pieces that were smuggled out in a show entitled “Under Fire.”
While the works themselves managed to escape the war-torn territory, the four artists who created them — Basel Al-Maqousi, Raed Issa, Majed Shala and Suhail Salem — were not so lucky.
They remain trapped within the narrow coastal strip where Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 43,500 people, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, and created a humanitarian disaster.
The artworks “depict the daily realities of war and the hardship these artists endure, who have been displaced and lost their homes,” said Shaqdih.
He said the gallery was already familiar with the artists on display before the war broke out on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel.

'Nightmares'

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
“The language of art is universal. Through these paintings, we are trying to convey our voices, our cries, our tears and the nightmares we witness daily to the outside world,” said Maqousi, 53, speaking to AFP by phone from Gaza.
The exhibition features 79 artworks crafted from improvised materials including medicine wrappers, and using natural pigments made from hibiscus, pomegranate and tea.
The drawings show people under bombardment, displaced families on donkey-drawn carts, makeshift tents, weary and frightened faces, emaciated children clinging to their mothers and blindfolded men surrounded by military vehicles.
“I can’t paint with colors and expensive pigments because there are more pressing priorities here in Gaza, like food, drink and finding safety for myself and my family” reads a text by Suhail Salem next to his sketches drawn in school notebooks with ballpoint pens.
In a letter displayed alongside his work, Majed Shala describes how he was displaced to the southern city of Deir Al-Balah. His house, studio and 30 years of artworks were completely destroyed.
“When the war first started, I felt completely paralyzed, unable to create or even think about making art,” he wrote.

'Far more devastating'

As time passed, “I started to document the real-life scenes of displacement and exile that have affected every part of our daily lives,” he added.
His words are displayed next to a painting of a man embracing his wife amid a scene of destruction.
“These scenes remind me of the stories our elders told us about the 1948 Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” he wrote, referring to the exodus of around 760,000 Palestinians during the war that led to the creation of Israel.
“But what we’re living through now feels far more devastating, far worse than what people endured back then.”
Exhibition visitor Victoria Dabdoub, a 37-year-old engineer, said she was moved by the artwork.
“It is important that works like these are shared worldwide so that people can feel the pain, sorrow, and suffering of the people of Gaza,” she told AFP.
On the wall nearby is posted a message from artist Raed Issa: “We assure you: if you’re asking how we are, we are far from all right! Constant bombing and terror, day and night! Gaza is in mourning, waiting for relief from God!“


Dozens of arrests follow Turkish unseating of mayors

Dozens of arrests follow Turkish unseating of mayors
Updated 11 November 2024
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Dozens of arrests follow Turkish unseating of mayors

Dozens of arrests follow Turkish unseating of mayors
  • Ankara and its Western allies have branded the PKK a “terrorist” organization. The group has waged a bloody guerrilla war since 1984 that has left more than 40,000 dead.

ISTANBUL: More than 30 people have been charged in Turkiye after protests against the removal of three mayors in the Kurdish-majority southeast, who were then replaced by government-appointed trustees, the interior ministry said Sunday.
Those detained, after the authorities sacked the mayors on “terrorism” charges, include a journalist from news website 10Haber.
His lawyer said the reporter was arrested late Saturday following a series of articles on the removal of a mayor in a district of Istanbul.
Authorities have alleged the mayor is linked to the banned Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK).
More than 250 people have also been detained for participating in protest rallies in mainly-Kurdish southeastern Turkiye against the mayors’ removal.
The ministry said 33 of those detained had been charged, while 37 have been placed under judicial surveillance, while three others face house arrest.
Monday’s replacement of the mayors sparked widespread anger and brought a rebuke from Europe’s top rights body, the Council of Europe, which said the move undermined local democracy.”
The trio all are from the main pro-Kurdish party DEM. They were elected in March when opposition candidates won in many areas, including Istanbul.
Authorities banned rallies in several Kurdish majority provinces after the move.
Images filmed mid-week in Batman showed police officers targeted by firecrackers and dispersing demonstrators with armored vehicles equipped with water cannons.
Ankara and its Western allies have branded the PKK a “terrorist” organization. The group has waged a bloody guerrilla war since 1984 that has left more than 40,000 dead.
 

 


Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike

Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike
Updated 11 November 2024
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Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike

Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike
  • Iran's foreign ministry also called for “an arms embargo” against Israel

TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry called Sunday for an arms embargo on Israel and the expulsion of its arch-foe from the United Nations, following a deadly strike in Syria.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran “strongly condemned the aggressive attack carried out today by the Zionist regime against a residential building” in the Damascus area.
The strike on an apartment belonging to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, killed nine people including a Hezbollah commander, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Baghaei called for measures against Israel, including “an arms embargo” and its “expulsion from the United Nations.”
Regional tensions have soared since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the Palestinian Hamas militant group’s unprecedented attack on Israel.
The conflict has drawn in Tehran-aligned militants in the region, and included rare direct attacks between Iran and Israel.
Since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting army positions and fighters including from Hezbollah.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.


Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq

Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq
Updated 10 November 2024
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Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq

Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq
  • Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory

BAGHDAD: Turkish drone strikes killed five members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service and security sources said on Sunday.
The first Turkish strike targeted a vehicle in a mountain area near Iraq’s northern province Dohuk late on Saturday, killing three, including one person identified by the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service statement as a “senior PKK official,” the statement added.
Another drone strike on Sunday targeted a vehicle, killing two fighters from the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a militia affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), two security sources and a local official in the district of Sinjar told Reuters.
Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory.
The PKK launched an insurgency against Ankara in 1984 with the initial aim of creating an independent Kurdish state. It subsequently moderated its goals to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkiye.