A Turkish air-strike killed seven family members in a Kurdish village in northern Iraq, a local official said Aug. 21. Qalat Diza mayor Hassan Abdullah said the strike hit two parents and their five children as they rode in a truck the village of Kortek, is located in Qalat Diza township, about 180 kilometers northeast of Sulaimaniya along the Turkish border. The Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq has expressed concern as Turkish warplanes carry out air-strikes against suspected rebel strongholds of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the Kandil Mountains along the border. On Aug. 19, the Turkish military said warplanes and artillery struck more than 100 targets in northern Iraq. Dozens of Turkish soldiers have been killed over the last month in fighting with the PKK. The air raids came in response to a PKK ambush on a Turkish military convoy at in Çukurca in Turkey's eastern province of Hakkari. (CNN [2], Aug. 21; Hurriyet Daily News [3], Aug. 20)
Two years ago, Turkey went through a spate of regular air-strikes on northern Iraq [4] that lasted for months.
See our last posts on Turkey [5], Iraq [6] and the Kurdish struggle [7].
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